


stray

by ykarvats



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Berk - Freeform, Book of Dragons, Dragons, Family, Gen, HTTYD - Freeform, Hiccup returns, Hiccup runs away, Mystery, Runaway, Runaway Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Stray, Years Later, hidden identity, hiddenworld, httyd2, httyd3, made up dragons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28132983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ykarvats/pseuds/ykarvats
Summary: AU | Hiccup goes through with his plan to leave Berk. What happens when he is forced to come back after almost 8 years, and has to hide who he is from everyone he once cared about.*I only put the rating for caution*
Comments: 41
Kudos: 137





	1. Prolouge

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> My name is Charlie. I consider myself a creative writer. I write only for fun. So I'm in no way a pro, so there with probably be some grammar issues and spelling mistakes. Httyd is a series that I have recently gotten into again, so my mind is a little foggy when it comes to remembering everything. So again, there might be false info, that isn't in httyd, so if there is anything that you see, let me know!  
> I really hope you enjoy!  
> -Charlie

Surprisingly, Hiccup only tripped once as he ran through the woods at full speed. But it was quite a horrendous fall. It was around he area that he had met Toothless. His foot caught underneath a root and he went sailing down a hill. He tumbled, the contents of the woven basket he carried flying through the air. He landed with a loud crack at the bottom of the hill, his mind rolling around in circles.

Hiccup was in a rush to get to the cove, and his dragon. He allowed himself a minute or two to let his eyes focus again and his head to not feel like it had rocks tumbling around in it. Then, slowly, he cleaned up all the random objects scattered across the dirt floor, no matter how much his muscles screamed fo him to sit back down for a minute or two more.

Back into the basket went a couple of pairs of spare clothes, all Hiccup’s notebooks, pencils, random papers covering in drawings and weird inventions he might someday put into action. He had one fish to give Toothless. He knew the dragon wouldn’t be happy about that being all he would get for the afternoon, but they would stop later to get more food.

Hiccup had cleared out most of his room back in the village. The only things of importance that he had left was the helmet his father had given him, and the brown fuzzy jacket that he felt was just fluffy so it might make him look a little larger around the chest and stomach area. It had never done that for him. He was still a toothpick.

It had been a normal day for Hiccup. Wake up, eat, work in the forge for a bit, and then go down to the arena and win, once again, in dragon training. But somehow, he had been crowned  _ the  _ winner. The one who gets to kill the Nightmare. And there was no way in all of Valhalla that Hiccup would kill that dragon,

Thrown into the basket were also all the tools that had been stored in the forge for a long time now. His plan was to disappear. Never see Berk again. He knew that taking all his belonging would probably raise some questions. Where had he gone? Why did he leave?  _ How  _ did he leave?

The last questions was the most important. He needed to leave now, while the rest of the village was too busy to notice he was gone. To busy to notice a dark shape flying over the village as Hiccup left atop his Night Fury. No one would ever have to know that he had befriended the dragons.  Hiccup didn’t even care what they thought. Most of the villagers would probably think he had died. It was best that way. Because then no one would come looking for him. Maybe they’d throw a nice funeral. Then Hiccup would know that some of the villagers had at least cared even a little bit.

Hiccup practically dragged himself the rest of the way to the cove. His legs were aching from running, his arms aching from carrying the heavy basket, and his head was pounding from hitting it so hard on the ground. The day for Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third was so far, going  _ amazing _ .

Finally, the light filtering into the open cove came into view. Hiccup slid the basket under the shield stuck between the rocks and then crawled in after it. Toothless immediately bounded into view, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He was panting under the hot midday sun.  Hiccup tossed him the fish. It landed in front of the dragon with an satisfying flop. The dragon gobbled it up like it was either the best thing he had ever had, or like it was last meal. Then he looked back up at Hiccup with sad eyes that clearly stated that he demanded more food. Hiccup shrugged.

“Sorry bud, that’s all I got for now. But don’t worry. We’ll get some later.” The dragon cocked its head to the side in question. “We’re leaving. Just you and I. Neither of us belong here.”

The dragon sat farley still as Hiccup attacked his saddle and tail, then clipped the woven basket to his side. Toothless bounded off into the cave at the far side of the cove that he had been sleeping if for the past few weeks. He disappeared into its shadows. Hiccup sat down to put on his riding gear and imagined that Toothless was taking one last look around, just as Hiccup had done before he left out the back door of his house.

Just as he was sliding on the straps, he heard a crumbling sound, and a thump. He snapped his head up and peaked over the rack he was leaning against to find Astrid, standing at the edge of the Cove, her ax heald loosely in her hand. Hiccup carefully pushed up onto the balls of his feet, but made sure to stay crouched and hidden behind the rock.

Astrid also leaned down and picked something up. Hiccup recognised it as one of Toothless’ scales. The Viking re adjusted her ax so she heald it in a defensive stance with both hands gripping the handle instead of one. She looked around cautiously.

Hiccup sat back down and pressed his back against the rock. He quickly tightened the straps on his riding gear and stoop up. Astrid looked at him with a confused look, which quickly turned to a suspicious look.

“Astrid! What are you doing here?” Hiccup mocked fake joy.

Her eyes squinted in suspicion. “I could ask you the same thing,” She walked over to him and peaked around the rock that he had been sitting behind not moments before. 

“Uh, I was- I was napping. I like to come here to nap.”

Astrid grimaced. “You  _ nap _ . Because from what’s been going on in the arena it seems like you’ve been training. Which is the opposite of training.”

Astrid patted the handle of her ax in a threatening manor. Hiccup gulped. Then he heard a low growl. One that he only heard because he had become accustomed to it. Astrid only heard it because she was standing ten feet closer to the source than Hiccup was.

She spun around just as Toothless prowled out of his cave. His teeth were bared.

Astrid gaped and pushed Hiccup down. Then she turned back to Toothless and before Hiccup could tell her not to, she threw her ax towards Toothless. But, being a Night Fury, he dodged it easily. Hiccup didn’t stay in the place Astrid had pushed her into for very long. He jumped up on top of the rock

Toothless came charging at the two of them. He seemed to be heading straight for Astrid. 

“Toothless, no!”

In shock, Astrid fell back. But instead of attacking her, Toothless jumped over her. Hiccup reached out and grabbed hold of his saddle, using his momentum to pull himself up onto Toothless’ back. He stuck his foot into the stirrup and clicked the tail open.

“Hiccup!” Astrid screamed. Hiccup looked back to find her looking up at him, her face full of fear. But she soon disappeared, as Toothless and Hiccup disappeared into the cover of the clouds.

Normally, Astrid was always able to run through the woods and react quickly to objects that came in her way. Today, apparently, Astrid was in another place. Her ax kept getting caught in branches and her feet tripping on every little rock or stick.

The village was quite. Those whos huts were still intact were inside, those who weren’t so lucky, are outside silently cleaning up from the latest dragon raid. So when Astrid went running up to the chiefs house and knocked on his door, the sound seemed to echo throughout the place. Stoick opened the door. He had a grin on his face. Astrid could hear cheerful voices coming from inside.

“Astrid! Wheres my boy? He hasn’t already killed a dragon ‘as he? I wanna be there for it,” he let out a hearty laugh, which caused another loud cheer to come out of the house.

“No sir- he- Hiccup was taken by a dragon.”

Stocks grin fell. He frowned at her. The noise from the house had dropped just like the chief joy. Astrid heard a cut drop to the floor with a wooden, hollow thump. “Say that again?”

“Hiccup was taken by a dragon.”

The chief cleared his throat and let Astrid into the house. He put down his cut. “How do ye know?”

“I- I followed him into the woods, thinking he was acting a little weird. I found him in this clearing, hiding behind a rock. He said he had just been napping. Then this huge black beast came out of no where and- and took him. I tried to help, I really did.”

Stoicks face turned from confused to murderous in an instant. He charged up the stairs, then came down a moment later, Hiccups fur vest clutched in one hand, and the boys tiny helmet in the other. Astrid imagined smoke coming out his ears. That kind of thing would normally make Astrid crack up, but not now. Nothing at the moment would be able to make Astrid laugh.

The boy and the dragon flew for hours. They didn't stop for anything, not even the flock of birds that almost knocked Hiccup off Toothless.

Eventually, the hunger hit them both. Hiccup had made sure to eat before he left, and he knew that Toothless could go a while without food. He didn’t like it, but for the dragon, it was possible. But even so, Hiccup’s stomach started to growl. At first it was subtle, not really even noticeable little gurgle. But soon the gurgle turned to a full on angry growl, and they had to stop.

Hiccup hopped of Toothless, his feet meeting the wet ground with a little splatter. For the past thirty minutes it had been raining, so the dragon and the rider made their way to a small save that was only eight or nine feet deep at most. The ground was far from dry, but after Toothless hit the ground with a few plasma blasts, making wetness evaporate, Hiccup sat down comfortably, leaving against two sides of the rock walls.

Toothless cooed and gave his rider sad eyes. Hiccup smiled.

“You can go get food for yourself. I’m going to wait out the rain before going out again.”

So the dragon went out. He loved the rain. It was the opposite of fire, which is what he was most around. The was cool on his skin, and kind of felt like you were getting a massage when the cold pelts of water hit. For a moment of two, Toothless simple rolled onto his back and enjoyed the rain on his underbelly.

Then he went down to the water side and caught five or six fish easily. He ate most of them, leaving one for Hiccup. But when he got back to the little cave, Hiccup had slumped over to the side, asleep. Knowing that Hiccup probably wouldn’t wake till morning, due to the wildness of the day, the dragon ate the finally fish, then curled up next to Hiccup, placing a long wing over the boy for warmth.

There, he fell asleep, hoping for freedom the next day.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I know that this was kinda short. I didn't really have any ideas for how he would leave Berk. But I have ideas for later on don't worry :)
> 
> I RE-WROTE THIS CHAPTER. I wasn't happy with what it was like before, because I know that its normally the first chapter that pulls you in. And that old one... would not have pulled me in if I had been the one reading it.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the 3 people who gave Kudos the the last chapter :)  
> -Charlie

It was two months after he had left, and Hiccup had been camped on an island not far from the queens nest--or what he had started to call “Dragon Island”--for almost two days. He has been studying it, and all the dragons that went in and out twice a day. He had found all the entrances, and had been inside twice. Once him and Toothless had brought food, and hid among all the other dragons. The second time they had gone in when only the queen herself was there.  
He had taken as many notes on it as he could. What it looked like, any visible weaknesses or injuries. He was planning to taking it down. From his studies, he had figured out that she was controlling the dragons, making them raid villages, looking for food. Then they would bring it back to her and get none of it.  
Many of the dragons were starving, having not eaten in a long time.  
Hiccup was waiting for the daily night hunt when head heard the yells. Not really yells, but more war cries. He jumped onto Toothless’ and flew over to the island. He was horrified to see his own father jump out onto the black rock beach, not even trying to be quite. He went up to one of the ground level openings. He signaled, and a flaming rock went flying through the air and into the whole, revealing thousands of dragons, all tucked into the tunnel.  
In an instant, all of them were flying towards Stoick, Gobber, and the other vikings who had ventured up. Many of them yelled in surprise, but Stoic swung his war hammer at them, and Gobber shook his hook into the air.  
Maybe the queen hadn’t heard them, Hiccup thought to himself. Then he shook his head. What am I thinking, of course she knows they’re here.  
Hiccup went around to the back-side of the island and went into the hive. The queen was riled up. She slowly climbed up the ride of her whole, and let out an earsplitting roar. Hiccup flinched back and flew back the way he had came. He had only just made it back to the fleet of boats when the roar came again, and the massive dragon ripped open the mountain. Hiccup even saw his father stumbled back. Great Stoick the Vast. The dragon roared again and let out a huge blast of fire, taking out half the fleet of ships. A very distinct cry came from one of the ships.  
Toothless’ ears flipped towards where the sound came from. It was the sound of a Nadder. The two of them flew down and landed on the burning ship, right in front of an orange, blue, and yellow Nadder that was tied down to a plank of wood. Hiccup heald out both hands ar he approached it. The dragon calmed down a little. Just enough so that Toothless could hit the chairs and break the dragon out.  
It tilted it’s head at Hiccup before taking off. He climbed back onto Toothless and flew up over the crowd of people. The Queen was taking out men easily. Hiccup was glad to see his father, Gobber, and all the teens safely positioned behind the wooden spears that were stuck in the ground.  
Hiccup reached forward and placed his hand of Toothless’ head. “We need to get her attention off them. They don’t stand a chance.”  
Toothless huffed in agreement and charged up a shot. The sound that came from him was the all too familiar whistle that, before, would have made Hiccups arm hair stand up on end. He heard a voice yell ‘Night Fury!’ and Gobber yell ‘get down!’  
Toothless hit the dragon right in between the eyes, then swooped down and hit it again on the side of its face. It roared in anger, and to Hiccups delight, took a step away from the Berkians. The Red Death let out a long stream of hot fire, which the two of them just barely missed.  
“Woah! That was a little too close, bud. We know that it has wings, but we’ve never seen it use them. Do you want to try?”  
Toothless grumbled. Hiccup moved his tail into another position. Toothless folded his wings in close to his body, and they sped full speed at the deagon. At the last second, Toothless opened his wings and slowed down, firing one singular powerful blast that knocked the dragon over. The Red death screeched. Slowly, it’s wings opened up to their full length.   
It brought its wings up, and then down. The force of the air pushed up forced Toothless back a bit. The huge dragon lifted off the ground, letting out a mighty roar. Toothless and Hiccup turned upwards and started climbing up into the clouds. Even through the Red Death was slow, it had huge wings, which made climbing easier. It’s mouth was opening.  
“Ok Toothless, time to disappear!” the Night Fury took two huge flaps and the Red Death chomped down, just missing Toothless’ tail. It came up into the clouds and spun around, searching. A purple blast came out of no where and hit it in the face. Then a second, hitting it’s back. After the third blast, the dragons became agitated and let out it’s fire while also spinning around wildly.  
Hiccup and Toothless did there best to dodge it, but a bit of fire caught Toothless’ fabric tail. They went spinning out of control for a second before Hiccup pulled upwards.   
“Times up!” He yelled. Toothless started to dive, the Red Death following right behind. Hiccup leaned down close to Toothless. “Hold, Toothless. We’re good. We’re fine. Almost there.”  
He looked over his shoulder slightly at the dragon. It’s mouth was opening, orange light and green colored gas pooling out, getting ready to take its shot.  
“Now, Toothless!”   
The Nightfury spun around onto its back and shot one singular plasma blast right into the dragons mouth, agnited the gas before it could catch on the Red Deaths fire. Hiccup pulled hard upwards just as they came out of the clouds. Hundreds of Vikings stood staring in awe as the Red Death realized its mistake. It opened its wings, but they did nothing. Infact, large rips opened in them. Hiccup and Toothless swerved out of the way of the dragon just as it crashed into the earth.  
The two of them flew through the spikes on its back. That last bit of Toothless’ tail broke off. Hiccup looked back as the tail disappeared into the flames. Then he looked back to find the huge mace looking tail coming right at them. His eyes widened.  
“No. No!”  
It hit them, and Hiccup went flying off Toothless, and fell into the flames.

Hiccup had fallen. And he was still falling. That was all the black dragon new as he dove after his friend. He reached the boy and wrapped all four of his legs, and bother his wings around him. He parley felt the impact of the earth, only the warm body that was heald close to his chest.  
He lay for a second, holding as still as possible. Ever so faintly, he heard the soft beat of Hiccups heart. Then he heard something else. A yell. Coming from the smoke that still hadn’t cleared. It was deep yell. One he had heard before. Berk’s chief.  
Toothless opened his wings and looked at Hiccup, then back at the cloud of smoke. He made a decision. Hiccup had left for a reason, which he still hadn’t told Toothless. But he had a pretty good idea.  
So Toothless stood up and carefully took the boys shirt in his teeth. He dragged him away, and hid right up next to the mountain. Again, he wrapped all his legs and wings around the boy and watched silently as about thirty or fourty Vikings came through the smoke. The largest one was the chief. He stood at the front.  
After a bit of them looking around, they left.   
Only when Toothless had heard their boats scraping against the rocks as they pulled away from the shore did Toothless tuck his face into his wings with Hiccup, and close his eyes to rest.  
⥈⥈⥈  
“What are we doing again, son?” Eydis Gilsson questioned his boy. They were riding atop a Changewing named Wildae. Aasur Gilsson, the mans son, was sitting right behind him.  
“We’re scouting. Dad, you’ve already told me this. I’m not stupid,” the boy responded.  
“I know, but why do we scout?”  
“So we can look for injured dragons of people.”  
“Exactly.”  
Aasur crossed his arms. He was the type who didn’t really like to do jobs that required flying on a dragon. More down to earth jobs were the kind of things he did most of the time. It wasn’t that he disliked the dragons, he actually cared a lot about them, but he just didn’t like training them.  
“But why do I have to come along?”  
Eydis sighed. “Because at some point, your mother and I aren’t going to be here anymore, and you’ll have to take over for us. So you need to know the important th-”  
“Dad.”  
Eydis glared back at his son. “Don’t interrupt me. You need t-”  
“Dad! Look-”  
Aasur pointed down. Wildae swooped low. The both of there eyes widened. Before them was an island. An island that normally had a huge mountain on it. But half of that mountain now lay in a pile of rubble. Wildae landed on the rock beach. It had a new layer of snow on it, but they could see the indents in the rocks that could only come from ships.  
“Is this the queens hive?” Aasur asked.  
Eydis rounded the side of the still intact part of the mountain, and gasped. “Yes. And there is it’s queen,” he pointed at the huge dragon that lay on its side.  
Most of its face was either missing or mangled. It’s skin was shared and pink and its wings had huge holes in them.  
“What happened here? This couldn’t have been Vikings. As powerful as they are, there is no way that they took out this dragon.”  
“I know. Wildae!”  
The Changewing landed down next to them. The two climbed on and it took off. Aasur frowned. “What are we looking for?”  
Eydis squinted. Then he saw something. It looked like a huge bat, but instead of hanging upside down, it lay on its side. Wildae landed again, and Eydis, instead of jumped off his back, he carefully stepped down. Aasur followed.  
“Is that a dragon?” He whispered.  
Eydis only nodded. They walked slowly up to the dragon. It lay in a little nest of snow. By the way it moved slightly up and down, they could tell that this dragon was alive. Eydis stopped and put out an arm, also stopping Aasur.  
“I can’t tell what dragon it is. Lets not get too close.”  
The dragon seemed to hear them. It moved a bit, then its head appeared. The animals eyes opened, revealing poison green eyes, with horizontal slitted pupils. Four flaps were on top of its head.  
The dragon growled, showing off a sharp set of teeth.  
“Dad. Dad that a-”  
“Night Fury. I know,” He took a slow step forward, a heald out his hand. “We don’t want to hurt you. We want to help.”  
The dragon seemed unfazed by this. It only bared its teeth more, it warning growl turning into an actual threatening growl. Eydis took a step back.  
“I can’t get anywhere near it.”  
Something pushed against his hand. Wildae. The Changewing stalked forward slowly. The Night Fury still growled, but let Wildae get closer. The two just looked at each other for a minute or two, as if communicating without making any noise. Then the Changewing stepped forward and they rubbed their heads together.  
Wildae looked back at Eydis and Aasur, who were staring at them with wide eyes. The Night Fury nodded his head once. Eydis took small steps forward, holding out his hand gently. The dragon eyes his hand for a second before his pupils widened and moved forward to meet Eydis’ touch. He sucked in a breath.  
The Night Fury let it’s head fall against the ground, and ever so slowly, his wings started to unwrap from the position around him. Eydis thought it was just to stand up, but was surprised to find a small form of a human boy clutched there. His face was scratched up, and his green tunic was ripped at the shoulder.  
Eydis let out a small gasp and looked from the boy to the Night Fury, and then back to the boy. He looked to be around Aasur’s age, maybe a little younger, even. And he was very small and-  
Aasur let out a sharp breath. “Dad, I think we might want to get him to the Sanctuary. look-”  
He pointed to the boys left leg. It was mangled and the bottom half just below his knee was most definitely broken.  
The man looked back at the dragon. “We want to help. You’re gonna have to let me get him.”  
The dragon let out a low moan, and closed its eyes completely. Eydis carefully took the boy out of the dragons hold and heald under his knees and chest. He walked over to Wildae, the Night Fury lifted himself up and followed. Eydis’ brows raised when he realized he was wearing a saddle.  
Still holding the boy, Eydis climbed onto Wildae’s back, Aasur followed. They lifted off the ground, preparing to fly off. The Night Fury didn’t move. He just stood and watched them. Or, watched the boy.  
“Come on. Lets go,” Aasur said to the dragon. The dragon moved it’s tail into view. It’s left tail fin was missing. Aasur sighed. “Oh.”  
Wildae flew above the dragon and grabbed onto the wing/shoulder joints and lifted the Night Fury up. The flight back to the Sanctuary took longer than the flight away from it. Wildae wasn’t a particularly large dragon, so carrying a dragon, and another person made the trip slower. At some point, the Night Fury close his eyes, Wildae assured them that he was just resting.   
Eventually, the icy Sanctuary came into view. They flew right into it. Normally they would have stopped outside one of the entrances and walked in, but there wasn’t time for that. The others in the Sanctuary noticed them right away. The red dragon carrying the midnight black one. Eydis’ wife ran up to them.   
“Is that a-” she started but Eydis interrupted her.  
“Night Fury. Yes. Take care of him. We don’t know how long he’s been without food or water. But for now,we have more urgent issues.”  
Wildae carefully set the Night Fury down, and then flew of towards the Health Centre. Eydis jumped off the dragon the ran into the building that was half mad out of wood, half ice. A woman was waiting for them. She took the boy without saying a word and rushed away. Eydis closed his eyes for a second before turning and leaving the building.  
⥈⥈⥈  
Astrid's eyes were still wide with shock as she leaned over the side of the boat, watching her reflection ripple with the water. The Queen had been taken down… by another dragon. A Night Fury. She could tell that Stoic was still mad he hadn’t found the dragon after the explosion. He was convinced that the Night Fury was the one who killed his son.   
Although Astrid hadn’t really got a good look at it, she knew it was big and black. About two weeks after Hiccup’s death, Astrid lead Stoic, Gobber, and Fishlegs to the Cove where Hiccup had been taken. There they found black scales, Hiccups viking helmet, a knife in the water, and a shield stuck between two rocks. Fishlegs confirmed that the scales were in fact, Night fury scales. They weren’t really sure how he did, but he did.  
Stoic had said that his room was, for the most part, empty. All his drawings and note books at least, were gone. And Gobber said that all Hiccup’s tools, which were normally in the Forge at all times, were also gone.   
All his stuff was gone. That lead her to believe that he had simply, just left. But the dragon made absolutely no sense. She had watched it fly away with him. So her finally decision was that he had been trying to leave, but got taken by the Night Fury before he had the chance.  
It broke her heart that he had wanted to leave. But she new exactly why. All the teens, including her at some times, were awful. Especially Snotlout. Snotlout was living his best life. He was under the impression that he could become the heir now that Hiccup was gone. Astrid was scared that he might be right.  
When the ships arrived back at Berk, Astrid went right into the woods in the direction of the Cove. she hadn’t been back since bringing Gobber, Stoic, and Fishlegs there. She had been ignoring it, hoping that maybe she would wake up from this nightmare. Astrid was startled when she realized that she wanted this to all be in her head.  
She had hated Hiccup. So why was she sad?  
Before she could even see the light where the clearing was, Astrid stopped in her tracked. She let out an angry yell and threw her ax as hard as she could at a tree. When she tried to put it out, she couldn’t. She pulled it as hard as she could. Then she screamed and crumpled to her knees. And she cried. She cried not for the ax. She cried for the dead boy who, until now, she didn’t even know she had cared about. 

Stoic and the other council members sat in the great hall. Most of them were arguing over one thing or another. The only people who stood silently were Stoic and Gobber. Originally, the meeting had been called to talk about the dead dragon queen and the hive, but naturally that had become talk about the Night Fury, and then that had evolved into talk about Hiccup, which started up the conversation about Stoic’s heir.  
Spitelout, and a handful of others thought it fit that Snotlout become the heir, because he was closest related to the Haddocks. Some thought that Astrid would be fit to be the heir. The rest were in between. They new that Snotlout would probably ruin the village if he became the chief, but Astrid wasn’t even close to being related to Stoic. The Hofferson’s ancestors had come from a different place entirely that the Haddocks.  
So that would be unnatural. To have someone not related to the current chief become an heir.  
Stoic stood up, which brought the attention of the council members. “I’ve made my decision.”  
Gobber frowned. “Stoic-”  
“There will be no new heir. My son is alive. I know it.”  
⥈⥈⥈  
Valka had recognised the boy as soon as she visited him in the medical centre. He had the same hair as her. And there was a small, pale scar on his chin. When she had walked in and seen him, she had staggered and stepped back.  
“Valka?’ her husband, Eydis asked. “What’s wrong?”  
She watched the boy for a second longer. His face had many scratches on them, and a bruise had formed on his cheek. He was asleep at the moment. Valka pulled Eydis away from the bed. “That boys name is Hiccup,” she whispered to him.  
Eydis’ eyes widened. “How do you know? Is he from Berk,” at the word Berk, his eyes flared up with anger.  
She nodded and looked up at him. “He’s my son.”  
At the moment, she was in her room. The Night Fury, the one that Hiccup had arrived with, was sleeping in the corner on a hot bed. It had been sleeping for a couple days, obviously very tired. Eydis had filled her in on what he thought might have happened. But they wouldn’t really know what actually happened until Hiccup woke up. 

The last thing that Hiccup had remembered what feeling really hot. And then pain. And then nothing. Then some cold. Then nothing once more. So what he was feeling now was weird. He wasn’t cold, but he also wasn’t hot. And the place where he’d felt the pain, he could feel absolutely nothing.  
Slowly, he opened his eyes and propped himself up with his elbows. Hiccup’d eyes widened at the room. Three out of four of the walls were made out of ice, that had a teal tint to it. The fourth wall, the one with a door on it, was made out of dark wood. The room had about ten beds in it, all of them spread out along the walls, and in the center of the room was a long strip of glowing red, lava looking rock.  
The door opened and four people walked in. The guy in the front had longish dark hair and a beard. Both had silver streaks. A woman followed close behind. She had brown hair that also had some silver streaks in it. Then a girl and a boy walked in after them. Both looked to be about Hiccups age. The boy had black hair and dark eyes, the girl had red hair. She had two tattoos on her face. The first was an almost complete square going around her left eye, the other was a black tattoo that looked like three scratch marks, going over her right eye.  
Hiccup noticed that all of the people that had walked in had some sort of tattoo on their face, except the kid with black hair. But he had tattoos covering his whole neck. Hiccup sat up fully when they all came over and stood at the end of his bed.  
“Who are you?” he questioned. His voice was a bit scratchy, and his throat was soar. “Where am I?”  
“Wow,” the guy with the long hair said. “‘Not even a thank you.” He came over and sat in a chair next to Hiccup, who leaned away. “We found you at the queens hive. Well, the queen was dead. Was that you?”  
Hiccup nodded slightly. The man raised an eyebrow, almost as if he had already know this, but it was still surprising to know.  
“You were injured. So we brought you back here. You may notice some… changes.”  
At this, Hiccup didn’t say anything. He looked around again at the people. “Where is my dragon?”  
This is what finally seemed to make them look confused. But the man fluttered his hand towards the younger man. “Aasur, can you go get the Night fury,” He focused his attention back on Hiccup. “What is you’re name?”  
“Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third?”  
“Quite a name, ok triple H, my name is Eydis Gilsson. I am the leader of the Dragon Riders. This is my uh,” he looked at the woman, a question on his face. She shook her head. “My wife. The boy who went to get your friend is my son, Aasur, and this is Asvor.”  
The girl, despite her intimidating features, nodded and smiled at Hiccup. The door burst open and an excited looking toothless burst through, followed by Aasur. Toothless bounded over and licked Hiccups face. He laughed and the dragon jumped around in a circle. He seemed completely fine. Un-injured.   
“What’s his name?” Eydis’ wife asked.  
“Toothless.”  
She stepped forward, placing a hand on Toothless’ noes. “He’s incredible.”  
Hiccup nodded and moved to throw the blanket off him. The woman placed a hand on his.   
“Just… warning you.”  
Hiccup frowned and pulled the blanket off. He let out a small gasp. The lower half of his left leg, just below his knee, was replaced with a wooden and medal peg leg. He spun and placed both feet on the ground. Toothless sniffed at he peg and then looked back up at Hiccup. He stood slowly, leaning on the Night fury for support. He turned towards the four people.  
The man crossed his arms. “Your leg was badly injured when we found you. There was no way that you were going to be able to keep it.”  
Hiccup nodded. Toothless helped him towards the door. He opened it and his eyes widened. In front of his eyes was a huge place, the walls made out of jagged teal colored ice. To his surprise, thousands of dragons flew around the place. There were a bunch of wooden around on different levels on the walls. And the biggest surprise were that there was people. A lot of them. And people riding dragons.  
He turned back to the people who were watching him from inside and gaped at them. The man smiled.  
I am the leader of the Dragon Riders. What he had said made sense now. It all made sense. At that moment was when Hiccup decided to trust them. His trust had begun to bloom when he realized that Toothless was completely uningered, and seemed very happy here. This was what he needed. Confirmation.  
Toothless helped Hiccup went the few stairs onto the rock ground. The people followed behind him. His breath left him when he got to the edge of a clif that went around a large whole. Down, in the water, was a huge dragon. Maybe even larger than the Red Death. It was white with blue eyes and large spikes coming off its head and two long tusks.   
The woman came up behind Hiccup. “The Bewilderbeast. King of all dragons, and our great protector.”  
Hiccup placed his hand on top of Toothless’ head and smiled. They were home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING. In most of this "Hiccup runs away" fan fics, Hiccup goes and meets His mother and the Bewilderbeat, right? Just like mine. But technically, Valka didn't get the Bewilderbeast until the last episode of Race to the Edge, which takes place after the first movie, SOO technically she doesn't have the Bewilderbeast at the moment... 
> 
> You know what, it's fine. We'll just ignore that :D


	3. Chapter 2

**Almost 8 years after Hiccup left Berk**

Hiccup whooped in joy. He was flying upside down in the middle of a wind turbulent. Toothless' wings were folded slightly, and his mouth was open, his tongue flapping in the wind. Behind him was his mother, standing on top of the huge Stormcutter dragon called Cloudjumper. Then behind her was the rest of his team.

Freyja Iscariot riding a Blue Dayfrill named Elsie. The dragon was a water dragon, so it was slow, but still loved to fly. Then Asvor Typho, riding a Death Song by the name of Alba. Asvor's firey hair made her look for menacing that definitely made people overlook her personality, which wasn’t very menacing. Behind her was a purple Zippleback. The riders on them were named Gyda and Liut Overbrook. They were brother and sister. Gyda was the younger one. But she was no less fierce that the rest of them.

And finally, at the end of the train of Dragon Riders, was Aasur Gilsson. For many years, Aasur had refused to ride any type of dragon, convinced that he was a better warrior when he was grounded. But when his father had died two years ago during a fight with dragon hunters, he had bonded when the Changewing, Wildae. That was the dragon that he now rode.

Hiccup grinned back at his mother. She wore teal and red wooden and leather armor. Hiccups own armor was smooth black and brown leather with all sorts of straps that connected to his flight suit. He also wore his helmet, finding that it made it easy to see without the wind making his eyes water. Toothless tucked his wings tight against his body and dove out of the turbulent. The other Dragon Riders followed close behind. Cloudjumper and Valka flew up close to them.

"Hiccup, you realize where we are? We should head back soon."

"I know. We will. The wind is just so fun right now."

Hiccup looked down at the landmarks around him. The ones around Berk. and sure enough, when Hiccup lowered himself even slightly out below the clouds, Berk could be seen on an island not far from where they were flying. Pulling upward on Toothless' saddle, hiccup turned around and hovered. The other dragon riders grouped around in a circle.

"Ok. You all know where we are. We need to be careful passing this place. Berkians have a keen eye, and an even keener ear. They will be able to here for from a mile away, and know exactly here to look once they've heard us. So we need to be completely silent while pa-"

"Hiccup, watch out!" Freyja screamed.

Hiccup spun around to find a net flying towards him. He pulled upwards but not quick enough. The net caught him around the neck and head, ripping him off Toothless. Hiccup expected to fall, so when he didn't he was surprised. He was hanging off Toothless, and in further inspection, realized that his metal leg was stuck in its place. And it was dragging Toothless down with him.

Reaching up, Hiccup pressed the button that released his foot from his leg. Both him and Toothless went down, but Hiccup was the only one that was dragged onto a ship by strong hands. He was shoved against the wall of the ship and his helmet was pulled off his head.

Daring to look up, Hiccup found himself face to face with three teens. He didn't recognise them at first, but after a second, found that they were the young children that couldn't have been more that eight or nine when Hiccup had left. The one in the middle was Gustav. The two on the outside were called Dane and Erna. The only that seemed to have changed about them was there size.

"Who are you?" Gustav asked. Hiccup stayed silent. They also sounded more of less the same. He looked around the ship. From what he could remember, It looked just like one of Berks's normal fishing boats aside from the small cabin on one of the far ends. The door was closed but Hiccup would see a yellow light coming from under it.

This ship was obviously meant for longer travel than a regular old fishing boat. So where were they coming from. Dane pulled Hiccup's shoulder back uncomfortably and tied his hands together. He didn’t tie his legs. I guess he assumed he wouldn’t be able to walk without his leg. Hiccup took the chance to look over the edge of the ship at his friends. There was a slight mist covering the water, so he could only barley see Cloudjumper and Valka pulling Toothless out of the water.

The door to the cabin opened and Hiccup's heart dropped. Standing in front of him, was one Ruffnut Thorston. She frowned at him. Then looked and Gustav, then pointed at him lazily.

"You kind of look like this guy Hiccup that used to live here."

Hiccup gulped, but still didn't say anything. Another blond figure walked out of the door and peaked over Ruff's shoulder. Tuffnut scoffed.

"What do you mean? That looked nothing like Hiccup. One, Hiccup was a toothpick, and that-" He gestured to the person sitting on the floor in front of him. "Is not a toothpick. And two, he had a leg."

Hiccup let out a slow breath. It was the first time that he had ever been grateful for his missing appendage. Ruffnut nodded slowly. Squinting her eyes, she looked suspiciously at Hiccup.

"True that brother. And he's dead."

"Oh yeah. I didn't think of that difference. That definitely tells us he's  _ not  _ Hiccup."

Gustav was gaping at them. The other teens looked like they were holding in laughter. The twins then got real up close to Hiccup, who moved his head back in surprise.

"So who are you! Tell us now!" Tuffnut screamed in his ear at the same time that Ruffnut said "I like your tattoo."

Hiccup did have a tattoo. It was simple. For a while he had refused to get any sort of tattoo, but when he turned 20, he thought it was time. It was a singular tattoo that came out of his hairline down his right cheek bone, and then took a sharp angle down to the corner of his jaw and down his neck. Then he had two other tattoos on his arms. Covering his whole left arm were swirling black marks that went from his wrist to his shoulder joint. But is you looked closely, the marks were actually a dragon. On his right wrist and half of his forearm were similar marks. 

The twins stood up and looked at eachother and yelled at the same time, "Another reason that he's not Hiccup!"

At this point Hiccup was just confused. He had no idea what was going on.

Dane growled at the twins. "Nevermind who he is. We need to get him back to Berk. I think that Stoic will be quite interested in these... dragon riders. And to know that we know where the Night Fury he's been looked for is."

⥈⥈⥈

Valka's breath came quickly. She watched in horror as Hiccup was hauled onto the ship and tied up. Five figures now stood around him. Luckly, none of them had the build of any of the adults on Berk. But the again, she could barely remember any of them other than Stoic and Gobber. Toothless let out a moan of distress as he watched his best friend slowly sail closer to Berk.

"Valka," Aasur said. "We cant let them get to Berk."

She nodded. "I know. I'll figure it out."

Valka new that as soon as Hiccup made it to Berk, he would probably be recognised. He had changed a lot over the years, but there were things that, if you knew what to look for, made it very obvious who he was. Valka and the other riders landed next to a river so Elsie could rest. The blue dragon landed in the water and Freyja hopped off her back. Valka made her way over to Toothless to make sure he was ok.

She spotted Hiccups metal leg stuck in its place. Aasur picked it up and grimaced.

"That's mildly disturbing."

He tossed the foot to Valka. She looked at it carefully before tucking it into a pocket in her armor. Then she climbed onto Cloudjumbers back and looked back at the Dragon Riders.

"I'm going up to look at our options. Stay here. Be quite and don't move."

They all nodded and she took off. Once they had risen to a hight where Valka could see most of Berk, they leveled out. The village looked more or less the same. The houses looked newer, but that because they were constantly getting repaired. There was the docks, and a large cliff with wooden stairs that lead up it.

The village had a bunch of different cliffs off the the sides, and a long grassy area that was the center of town. The Arena was on the right side on a cliff that you had to run straight threw the town center and over a bridge to get to. And even from where Valka was she could make out the house at the back of the village. It was where the Chief, Stoic, lived. Where Valka herself had lived once.

While looking at the village, Valka spotted something else, and just like that, she had a plan.

"At you're sure this is going to work?" Liut asked.

Valka nodded. "Yes. Positive. Stoic's not going to care if he finds out that they found  _ one  _ person. If they had also captured Toothless, I would have been a whole new story. But they didn't."

All the Dragon Riders, except Valka, had taken off their armor, leaving them in just simple tunic and leather trousers. They had to blend in. Valka wrapped a dear hide blanket that she kept on her for emergencies around Aasur to hide his neck tattoos. He looked miserable.

"Why do I have to be the one that actually goes into the village?"

"Because you have the most normal body type for a viking out of all of you."

He huffed in response. He was the least viking out of all of them. The only one who had been born among the Dragon Riders. The others had either been found or had come there on their own. They all strapped there armor to each of their dragons.

"And  _ why  _ are we only taking swords.

Valka glared at him, but still responded. "Because all of you have weapons that they wont recognise. Swords, Hammars, and Axes are the most common. You all have weapons that Hiccup made you. Are you all ready?"

The Dragon Riders slowly all nodded in turn. Valka looked at each one of them once over, then she took off, only stopping for a second for Cloudjumper to Pick up Toothless. And the other dragons followed to the the cliff that overlooked the Village.

⥈⥈⥈

"You know what I hate but also love about your mother?" Gyda asked as the five of them walked through the woods towards Berk. Without waiting for an answer, she finished. "Because she has the same brain as Hiccup, so if we're for some reason without him, we'll have a plan. But then the plan is exactly as crazy as normal."

Aasur laughed. It was always nice to have Gyda to break the tension without even trying. "Yeah I guess that is nice."

Finally they got to the edge of the village. "Ok. Stick to the plan," Aasur said to them. Then, only hesitating once, Aasur walked into the village. He walked like Valka had told him to. Not to cocky, because that would get you noticed, but also not nervous, because that would also make eyes turn towards you. He walked like he new his place.

A sharp edge of Hiccups metal leg was digging into his side.

The place was larger that it had seemed from the air. Aasur looked back to make sure the others were doing as planned. They were to spread out along the edge of the woods and wait for their cue, but none of them were really sure what that was. Valka said that it would be obvious.

Aasur spotted the airhorn and sped up a little bit. When he got there, he crouched down and looked at the ship that was lucky, just pulling up to the docks. A tall guy with longish black hair shoved Hiccup out of the boat. But since he was missing a leg, he just fell onto his side. The man laughed. Two people hoisted Hiccup up and half carried, half dragged him up the wooden stairs.

Hiccup had his head lowered, as his helmet was off, and some of the people here would probably know who he was. Aasur shifted and looked up at the cliff above the Village. He couldn't see anyone up there, but new that Valka and all the dragons were waiting.

Aasur looked back at Hiccup. They seemed to be moving towards what looked like the village forge. Standing there were two massive men. Aasur let out a nervous breath when he recognized the crest on the red haired mans shoulder pads. The chief. Hiccups dad.

Just as Aasur thought that, an explosion was heard from above. Valka's cue, or rather Toothless'. The aftermath of his plasma blast left one single sing of purple right above the Village.

Aasur stood and took a deep breath and blew as hard as he could into the airhorn. And then yelled at the top of his lungs.

"DRAGON RAID!"

⥈⥈⥈

Astrid sat in the dining hall, her hands being warmed by a hot drink that she had forgotten the name of. The first snow had came last week, but then it had rained for almost the whole week straight. Now it wasn't very cold outside, just miserable and wet. Her and the others all sat at the table, except the twins, who were out with some of the teens on a short scouting mission.

Snotlout was across from Astrid at the table, staring off into space. And Fishlegs sat next to her, copying something down form the Book of Dragons into one of his many notebooks. It always seemed that when she came across him, he was studying a new dragon, getting every piece on info out of the book as possible. Astrid even thought that he might be able to receipt the book by memory from cover to cover.

Snotlout huffed and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms at the same time. He smirked at Astrid. "You know what tomorrow is right?" He asked.

She clenched her jaw. Tomorrow was the eighth anniversary of Hiccups death. It was crazy to think about. She remembered as if it were yesterday, the meeting, three weeks after the fact, that the council voted majority to stop looking for him. Stoick and Gobber had been the only ones to vote against it.

For about a year, Astrid had been with Stoick, hoping desperately that the boy who had become so good so quickly, was alive. But then she remembered that he was  _ Hiccup _ . Small, uncoordinated, sarcastic Hiccup. As much as she hated it, he had no chance against a Night Fury. Not even one.

Stoick was the only one left who even had a little bit of a feeling he was still alive. Even though all of the gods who ruled the skies and beyond pointed against it. Astrid guessed that was the reason he still had not appointed an heir.

"I thought you might be glad. Because after all, it was his disappearance that named you the winner of dragon training. And the reason you got to kill the Nightmare. You should thank him, really."

Astrid glared at Snotlout. He smirked back. "I miss him. Don't you? He was your cousin after all."

Snotlout looked as if her were on the verge of laughing.

Astrid had never admitted to anyone that she missed him. It had taken her almost four years to admit it to herself. For a while, she thought that she just felt sorry for him. But then again, after a long enough time, you stop feeling sorry for someone. It was at that moment that her feeling towards Hiccup were more than just feeling sorry for him.

"We're talking about the same person right?" Snotlout scoffed. "Hiccup was like a stray dog. No one wanted him around. We're better off without him messing everything up."

Astrid lost it. She stood up and slammed her cap down onto the table. The contents splattered onto Fishlegs notebook. He looked up, startled, then focused back on the Notebook and whipped the wet from its pages.

She took a deep breath and decided to take a more calm approach. It's what Hiccup would have wanted. "You have no respect, Snotlout."

This seemed to confuse him. Astrid wasn't really one to work something out by talking. But just as she said that, a loud horn was hear outside and then an even louder. Astrid gasped and the familiar sound of the Dragon Raid horn. She grabbed her Axe and ran outside. The place was chaos.

Vikings were running around everywhere. Mom's rushing their children inside and the running back out with an Ax and an angry face. It had been two weeks science their last attack. They hadn't had any attacks until three years ago. But the attacks never last long. And they never took any sort of food. Just blew stuff up. But the biggest change was that there were never more that ten dragons.

Time seemed to slow as she saw two dragons flying right next to each other. One was a purple colored Zippleback the other she didn't recognise. It was a brilliant shade of yellow with huge horns on its head, which was an array or purples, oranges, and blues.

That one landed softly on the ground ten feet away from Astrid. Bad move. She charred it, her axe raised for the kill. But out of no where, a woman with striking red hair and strange tattoos on her face came running out from behind the dragon. She was yelling a battle cry directed towards, a shiny sword heald in an attack position.

Astrid looked behind her, wondering if there was a dragon there, but realized too late that there wasn't one, and the woman was attacking. The woman hit Astrid over the head with the hilt of her sword and then leaned down, there faces inches away.

"You will not touch my dragon," she whispered. Then, she hit Astrid over the head once more, and she blacked out.

⥈⥈⥈

Aasur looked around, searching for his dragon. Then he remembered that it was invisible. "Oh Thor."

He took off running up the hill and turned the corner. The place wasn't hard to figure out. He darted through the town center and to the edge of a cliff. There was a wooden ramp leading down, and when he rounded the corner of a stone wall at the bottom, he saw the arena. It was about 200 meters away, half of that tame spit up by a thin wooden bridge. 

He was there just in time to see Hiccup shoved into the arena and the door slammed down. Aasur calmed his breathing and speed walked over the bridge. Two men went running by him, but didn't pay any attention to the unfamiliar face.

Aasur made it to the arena and threw the first door open and ran to the second, and upon finding it was locked, growled in anger. He met the eyes of a--despite being captured by people who hated him--grinning Hiccup.

"About time!" he yelled. "I was worried I'd have to fight my way out."

"With one leg? Good plan, smart ass."

Aasur tossed the peg leg to Hiccup just as one of the Vikings guarding the place realized what he was doing and charged. He quickly reached through the bars and cut through the ropes binding Hiccups hands together, then raced the Viking.

Just as the two swords met, Aasur heard the distinctive war cry of Asvor and smiled.

Intimidating looks, calm soul, terrifying fighting style. It was part of her charm. She was not someone that you wanted to be on the other side of the blade with. But they didn't know that. Aasur glanced back at Hiccup quickly. He was still putting his leg on. For as easy as it comes off, that thing did not go on easily.

Hearing and feeling the wings of Cloudjumper, Aasur finished off the Viking. He hit him over the head, only knocking him out.

"Triple H," Aasur growled. " _ Look up. _ "

Hovering above the Arena was a large four winged Stormcutter dragon, with a woman with wooden and metal armor on. Clutched in the dragons talons was a smaller, but no less terrifying, Night Fury. Toothless blasted the top of the arena, and Cloudjumper lowered him in. Aasir took off running yelled to Valka.

"Hey, Mom!"

The Dragon Rider paused and he pointed to the rocks above the door to the arena. Understanding what he meant, the Stormcutter sent a powerful blast at the rocks. They collapsed onto the door. Hearing a roar, Aasir realized that the red haired man from before, the chief, was charging at him. He must have seen Toothless being lowered into the arena.

His eyes widening, Aasur took off running, not wanting to have to fight Hiccup's dad. He took a leap of faith, quite literally, and jumped off one of the cliffs.

"Wildae!" he yelled. The dragon didn't appear. "Great."

Aasur covered his head with his hands and prepared for impart. But it never came. Wildae had caught him. Aasur huffed. "Stupid invisible dragon."

Wildae let out a humanly laugh. He soared up into the air with the others. All five dragons waited patiently, staring at the arena. And then, with a whoop, Toothless and Hiccup soared out of the encaged place. He flipped upside down and swooped low, grabbing something out of a young teen's hands.

He flew up to them, a grin plastered on his face. "Good plan, using that horn."

"That was Valka's idea."

Hiccup smiled at her. "Thanks mom."

She laughed. "I barely did anything. I came up with the plan, signaled to them, and then brought Toothless to you. They did all the hard work."

"Thank you  _ everyone _ . That was an experience that I never want to experience again. Maybe we should not come through here anymore. And if we do, I'm gonna be really careful. That was none of your faults. I wasn't paying attention, and too arrogant to ever think that they would see us. I guess I didn't think about scouting sh-"

Hiccup froze mid sentence. Aasur looked at his curiously. He had also stopped moving, his hands frozen in mid-air, a look of horror on his face. He looked around slowly at each and everyone of the Riders, then back at Berk. His chest was rising faster than it had been a couple seconds before.

"Hiccup, talk to us. What's up?"

"They have my bag."

Aasur frowned. His bag? "Why is it so important? All you carry in there is some dragons nip and a map."

Slowly, Hiccup shook his head. The horrified look turning to guilt. "No. I had all my notes, and... drawings. I had our book of dragons in there. I was... updating it when you guys came and told me we were going to the markets."

Aasur felt his stomach drop, and slowly, the looks of realization dawned across the other Rider's faces. The book had every type of dragon at the Sanctuary, more than Berks book of dragons. That wasn't really the problem. Sure, they didn't want them to have the book. It would give them more ways of capturing and killing dragons.

But Hiccup's notebooks. His drawings... He had drawings of the Bewilderbeast. Drawings of the Sanctuary, and it's location. Of Toothless, other dragons, and various people who lived at the Sanctuary. Self portraits of himself. And he wasn't a bad artist. If they saw a drawing of Hiccup, or Valka, they would know who they were.

Hiccup looked around again, his face full of apology. "I'm so sorry. But we have to get those books."

The Cove looked exactly how Hiccup remembered it. Most of the space being taken up by a small clear water pond, but there was still land. The walls were high rock. There were only two entrances by foot. One from above, which was the first one Hiccup had found when he met Toothless, and the second was near the ground. To Hiccups surprise, the shiel that had gotten stuck there was still lodged between the rocks. He tugged at it once, but then gave up, not wanting to waist his time on something that didn't really matter.

For the moment, he needed to think.

So, without saying a word to the others, Hiccup set up his tent, on the far part of the beach where he remembered where he'd first touched Toothless. Where his journey had started. Eight years ago. At that moment, Hiccup remembered what day it was. Tomorrow was exactly the day he'd left.

In shock, Hiccup looked up at the sky. It was a couple hours past noon, so the Cove was in the shade at this point. He sat down nest to Toothless, who swished his tail over to Hiccup. It was waterlogged from falling in the water. So he carefully took it off and lay it out in the remaining sun to dry. Then he stripped off the leather armor and lay it next to the tail.

Then he went out to find wood to start a fire for the night. Because after all, it was the beginning of winter on Berk. So there was either going to be rain or snow when night came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> It's getting more interesting! I didn't want to make this chapter too long so that's why it kinda ends awkwardly lol. Imagine the armor Hiccups wearing is the armor he wears in the second movie (he does have dragon scale armor don't worry). The armor Valka had is like the armor she wears also, and the others have armor similar to Hiccups, just not as elaborate because they don't have flight suits on this armor. I hope you enjoyed reading!  
> -Charlie


	4. A/N

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> If you would prefure not to read all of this, then I'll put at the end kindof an overview of what I wrote :)  
> -Charlie

Hi!

I wanted to write this really quickly. This is basically just like, telling you about the story and some important information that might make this make more sense, or like, tie together some loose ends that I might have missed. Also, before I get into anything, today is Christmas! Happy Christmas, unless you don't celebrate Christmas, then happy December 25 I suppose. Alsooo, uh, its 2020, and i'm only saying this because I know that whenever I read a story and it stops after a couple chapters and not really anything has happened, I stop reading it because I just assume that its not gonna have anymore chapters. So I just wanted to let you know that this story is still on-going. If I ever do decide to stop writing it, then I will say so. I'm not just going to disappear. I hope.

Anyways, basically, the Prologue takes place in the first movie, as you may know, just after its announced that Hiccup has to kill the Nightmare. This Nightmare is NOT Hookfang, and the other dragons kept in the arena are NOT Stormfly, Barf/Belch, or Meatlug. Those dragons come into play later on in the story. I decided to start this story with Hiccup running away because I didn't want to draw that out for too long. I knew that Chapter 1 would be about who he stayed with and where he stayed at, so I thought maybe I would make a little baby Prologue with that info. I only changed the scene in the Cove with Astrid slightly. The biggest difference being that she walks up on him, and he actually leaves. Plus some of the dialogue is different.

Due to the fact that Hiccup never gets to show Astrid what Dragons are really like, and she never meets Toothless(formally) and they never get taken to the Nest, it takes longer for Hiccup and Toothless to actually find the nest. And since Hiccup never fought with the Nightmare, and Toothless never had to save him, therefor never getting taken, It also takes the Vikings longer to figure out that only a dragon can find the nest. That is why the second chapter takes place two months after Hiccup has left. I could have easily gotten rid of this part and have Hiccup find Valka and the other riders some other way, but I actually love the fact that my boy Hiccup has a peg leg. I think it gives him character. So that is literally the only reason that I put in the fight with the Red Death.

The second chapter takes place almost(literally only a day away) _8_ years after Hiccup left. By this point, Hiccup has bonded with his new friends, his mother, and his relationship with Toothless has only grown stronger. I've decided, that all the stuff that happened in Race to the Edge, How to Train your Dragon 2 and the Hidden world, have in fact happened, except all the Berk riders (Astrid, Fishlegs, Ruff/Tuff, Snotlout) are replaced with Hiccups crew(Aasur, Liuy, Gyda, Asvor, Freyja). And all the stuff that has Gobber, Stoick, or any of the Viking from Berk, does not happen(pretty much). 

They do fight Drago. Meet Eret, who becomes a dragon rider with them. But instead of Drago's Bewilderbeast winning, Valka's does, so that is when Drago looses. Berk was never apart of this fight at all. Toothless never became the Alpha, because the Bewilderbeast never died. I actually haven't even decided if Berk ever will know about it. Most of the contents of what happens with Grimmel also happens. Except for the Light Fury. I don't really like her. It's my opinion, and it's not to solid. So feel free to try and change my mind about her.

Also on a sadder note, the fight with Grimmel is the one that killed Aasur's father :(

The armor that Hiccup and the others where most of the time is either the dragon skin armor, of simple leather armor. Hiccup, obviously, has the Night Fury scale armor. Aasur has red colored armor that can become invisible(Changewing scales). Freyja has different armor in all different shades of blue purple and maybe some dark greens. Liut and Gyda have purple armor. Asvor has orange, yellow, and purple armor. Valka wears the armor she wore when she first met Hiccup. I desribed it a wooden, becuase I thought that's what it looked like and I'm not very good at describing things. That is mainly why I wont be putting to much detail into the armor, so you are free to think of the armor however you'd like. What Hiccup wears when he isn't training or anything is the leather stuff he wears in the third movie.

On the note of Freyja's dragon, Elsie. It is a dragon that I have made up. It is a tidal class dragon, that is closly related to a Scauldron. But unlike a Scauldron, when water enters its stomach, it releases a gas into it. And when this water is released into the air, it freezes immedieatly. I think I'm going to make a scene where Fishlegs is looking at all their dragons, and he describes it as looking like a Shockjaw, but with rounder wings, round back fin things, and without all the tendrils on its chin. I named it an Antarctic Blue Dayfill. But honestly, I hate the name so if you have any ideas at all for this creature, PLEASE, let me know.

I think thats everything I wanted to cover? Not really sure. I probably missed something at some point. If I did, I'll just come back and put it in. 

Happy Holidays!

-Charlie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> Here are some big points that I made:  
> 1) It is Descember 25, 2020, so don't think I suddenly just stopped writing  
> 2) The dragons in the arena during training are not Stormfly, Barf/Belch, Meatlug, or Hookfang  
> 3) It takes Hiccup longer to find the nest, and the Vikings longer to use a dragon to find the nest as well  
> 4) Second chapter takes place basically 8 years after Hiccup left  
> 5) All the contents of Race to the Edge and How to Train your dragon 1&2 have happened except:  
> -Valka's Bewilderbeast wins  
> -Toothless never becomes alpha  
> -Toothless never meets the Lightfury  
> -The dragons never leave  
> -Anything with any of the people of Berk, either never happened or is replaced with other people  
> 6) Aasurs dad died in the fight agaist Grimmel  
> 7) All their armor is up for interpretation on what it looks like. It does match eatch of there dragons though  
> 8) I'm pretty sure Valkas armor is made out of wood? Not really sure. Let me know  
> 9) Freyja's dragon is a new dragon that needs a better name that the one I gave it
> 
> Yeah that's pretty much it. If you want to know more, feel free to look through the writing above :)  
> Happy Holidays!  
> -Charlie


	5. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the 19 people who have given kudos on this story :)  
> Also, thought that I'd let you know that I have a board on pinterest with some info on this story. It's just called "stray - httyd fanfic" and my user is "hotcidergay" the board basically has what I imagine the characters to look like and some other stuff. Like iv'e said before, most of the characters and what they look like is really just up for interpretation. Like whatever you think they look like is how they look like. But if you don't hav any idea of how they look like, maybe that will help, and just like, get what i am imagining in my head lol  
> yeah,  
> -charlie

Aasur watched Hiccup take off Toothless’ tail, and then his armor, carefully laying each one in the sun. Then we walked off into the woods. Toothless had laid down near the water. He rolled onto his back, exposing his underbelly to the sky and warm rays of sun. Aasur followed after Hiccup.

There was a crevice in the rocks with… a shield stuck between them. It took his a moment to crawl underneath it, as he was larger than Hiccup. Once in the woods, it wasn’t hard to find him. He walked through the woods quickly and quietly, like he was going somewhere. But that was always how he walked. 

Aasur caught up to him and looked into his friends eyes. He could tell that he was bothered by something. They were best friends. Brothers. Even though they didn’t share any blood. Valka wasn’t Aasurs biological son. But the two of them were like full brothers. Even though Aasur did have a biological brother. They’re relationship was strictly professional.

It had taken about a year for them to become close friends. At first they only hung out because Eydis wanted them to, and they were around the same age. At the time, all the other younger ones were either a few years older or younger than them. The other teens had yet to arrive. Aasur was only older by half a year.

But then, over time, they started hanging out more and more on their own. They started to bond over their differences. Aasur lived in a place where everyone rode dragons, but he wouldn’t. Hiccup had been born in a place where people killed dragons, but he rode and befriended them. Aasur was tough and followed directions well enough. Hiccup was not as tough, but he was smart, often helping with plans.

Then, ever so slowly, they realized their similarities. Both the son of a chieftain, both stubborn and sarcastic. That was when there friendship became more. That was when they became family. 

He knew Hiccup better than anyone. Well, besides Toothless, but that was understandable. It was the same way with Wildae.

Aasur placed a hand on Hiccups shoulder. He flinched a bit, but smiled when he saw Aasur.

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you,” Hiccup said in a small voice. This made Aasur’s brows draw together. Hiccup, over the years, had learned to make his scenes double, even triple. He wasn’t that easy to sneak up on, and Aasur hadn’t exactly been trying to hide the fact that he had followed him.

He walked around to face Hiccup. “What’s wrong? Is it about your bag? Because that wasn’t your fault. And we’ll get it back.”

Hiccup only shook his head. “Tomorrow- tomorrow marks eight years of my ‘death’”

Aasurs face fell, and he pulled Hiccup into a tight hug. He stepped back, but heald the side of Hiccups shoulders in place. “I’m here for you, Hiccup. You can always talk to me about this kind of stuff. We are your family. Please- please never stop talking to us.”

Aasur stared at Hiccup until he gave a slight nod.

A stick snapped behind Hiccup. Aasur looked over his shoulder to find a blond girl frozen, staring at them with wide eyes. Hiccup moved to turn around, but Aasur blocked his face from the girl, and pulled him away from her. They ran around a patch of thick trees and hid behind a rock.

“Who was it?” Hiccup whispered.

Aasur shrugged. “I don’t know. But she saw us. I blocked your face though, don’t worry.”

They heard some rustling of leaves and Hiccup slowly peaked over the top of a rock. Almost immediately, his eyes widened and he dropped back down and pressed his back to a rock.

“Who is it?”

“Astrid Hofferson. She’s from Berk. Our age.”

Aasur grinned. “Astrid? As in the girl you had a crush on? The one you wouldn’t stop talking about for two years after we met you? That Astrid?”

Hiccup glared. “Well how many Astrid’s do you know?  _ Yes  _ that Astrid. We have to get out of here. She’s one of Berks finest soldiers.”

Aasur scoffed. “We can take her.”

He moved to leave the cover of the rock, but Hiccup pulled him back down. “ _ No _ . She cannot see us, or our dragons.”

“She’s already seen us though.”

“ _ No _ Aasur. We are not going to fight her. We just have to wait till she leaves.”

“But-”

Hiccup slapped a hand over Aasurs mouth. He licked his palm. Hiccup pulled away and glared, expecting him to say something else. But to his surprise, he kept his mouth shut. The two of them sat silently behind the rock for a couple minutes, listening to Astrid move around. She wasn’t very stealthy.

Finally, her footsteps retreated and the two of them ran quickly back to the Cove. Not even bothering to go to the ground lever entrance, Hiccup lead Aasur to another antrace that was about ten feet off the ground of the Cove. He slid down the rock, Aasur followed quickly behind. The others looked at them curiously, probably wondering why they were in such a hurry.

“Did you get fire wood?” Gyda asked. Both Hiccup and Aasur shook their heads. Gyda frowned. “Did you get food? Other that the fish we eat everyday.”

She sounded hopeful. But the two of them shook their heads. Toothless wondered over to Hiccup and warbled, sensing his friends distress. This caught the other Dragon Rider’s attention.

“What happened?”

“We saw a viking girl. Astrid, I believe.”

Asvor grinned. “Astrid as in the girl Triple H has a crush on?”

Hiccup growled. “I don’t have a crush on her anymore. And yes.”

Asvor laughed. “Hiccup, I was joking. Calm down.”

He ignored her. “We need to leave. No doubt Astrid is already on her way to tell the other Vikings she saw us. We don’t stand a chance.”

“But we have dragons.”

Hiccup turned to face Liut. “Yes, and they kill dragons. You will all go to a black sand beach that is on the other side of the island. There is a cabin there that Berk used to use as a storage building, but has since stopped using.”

They all nodded without arguing and moved to clean up camp. Quickly taking down tents, rolling up bedding and putting armor back on. Calka approached Aasur, Hiccup walked next to her. He came and stood next to him and Valka placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

“I’m going to head back to the Sanctuary and send Team 2 back here. You guys are gonna need all the help you can get.” They nodded and Valka smiled. “Stay safe. Don’t try and do anything that you’re not sure you can do.”

And with that, she hopped onto Cloudjumper and took off, disappearing into the clouds almost immediately.

Hiccup turned towards Aasur and met his eyes. “I’m going to stay here and send them off track a little, maybe keep them here for long enough. I think this is our chance to get the books back.”

Without saying anything, Aasur nodded and took off with the others, putting full trust in Hiccup.

⥈⥈⥈

Astrid woke up with a pounding headache. She was in her bed at home, and could have easily fell right back asleep. But something pulled her upright. She almost collapsed form headrush, but slowly, pushed herself to go outside. The place seemed completely normal. None of the houses were burned down like they normally were after there recent raids. 

But the people were in an outrage. Many were running around collecting early rations like there was a war that they didn’t want to be apart of, which was uncommon for Vikings. The torches were lit outside the Great Hall, which meant that there was a meeting happening.

Astrid went up to the great hall and walked through the doors. Most of the older generation was there. Stoick stood at the front, a frown plastered to his face. Gobber, Spitelout, and the elder stood near him.

“Who  _ were  _ they Stoick?” someone from the watching croud asked.

The Chief met eyes with the man and shook his head. “We don’t know who these people are, but they are clearly a new threat. They rode dragons!” at this statement, the croud roared in anger. “They are allies with out greatest enemy! They had a Night Fury among them! The Night Fury killed my son, and for that it will pay!”

The croud cheered. Astrid frowned. She hadn’t seen a Night Fury. Or heard it. Maybe the beast showed up after the got knocked out. Astrid gasped and pushed her way through the crowd.

“Chief!” she yelled. Stock paused and looked at her. 

“Yes, Astrid?”

“I got knocked out by one of them,” Astrid even surprised herself by admitting this. “I might be able to recognise her if I saw them again.”

Stoick frowned. “Really? If you’re feeling up to it, then you can join the scouting missions that I will be sending out. But only if your totally fine. You are one of our best warriors, I cant risk you get more hurt.”

Astrid grinned with pride and heald her head up a little higher. “I can do it, sir.”

Stoick nodded and Astrid left. She headed to the woods. It was a new victory for herself. The approval of the chief. He said that she was one of the best warriors on Berk. She had been telling herself that for a while now, but this was the first time that one of the council members, no less the  _ chief  _ had said so.

Lost in her own thoughts, Astrid forgot to grab her ax. She walked through the woods unarmed. It only came across her mind when she heard voices. Ones she didn’t recognise. She ducked behind a tree and peaked through the branches. Two people were standing there. The one with his back to her had messy brown hair. He wore a black tunic and brown leather trousers. He was thin, but she could see outlines on muscles on her arms.

The man standing in front of him was larger. Though they stood at the same height, this guy’s shoulders were brouder, and you could tell he was strong. He was black hair that was slicked back, a tattoos covering his whole neck.

Curiously, Astrid took a step away from the tree, hoping to get a better look at them. It was a mistake, because she stepped on a stick and it snapped. The large man met her eyes. The one with the brown hair tried to look, but the other pushed his head down and pulled him away and around a group of trees that were too thick to see them through.

Astrid looked around for a bit. When she realized where she was, only a bit away from the cove, she took off running back to the village, a plan already forming in her mind.

Gustav roared with anger. He had captured one of the Dragon Riders. He had him  _ in his clutches _ . But then his stupid friends showed up and took him. It had taken away any chance of his proving himself to Stoick. The man didn’t have any faith in him. He had done so many things that should have impressed the chief, but the man only pushed him away, saying to come back another day.

The viking would laugh at him, saying he would never become a full viking. Even though Gustav was strong, and could do more than they gave him credit for, everyone ignored him. Except for the teens of course. They cherished him. To them, he’s the leader they always wished for.

And Gustave had finally gotten a chance to go higher. But it was ruined. All that was left of proof was the man’s bag gripped in his clutch.

“ _ Fishlegs _ ,” He yelled at the large viking who was headed to his house. When the Viking looked at him, startled, he hurled the bag at him. “Take that. It has some stupid books in there I think you might like.”

Fishlegs’ eyes widened with excitement. “What are they?”

Gustav shrugged. “Why would I know. I don’t care about their stupid books.”

“Who?”

“The Dragon Riders.

Fishlegs’ eyes widened again and he took of running to his house. Only when the man had disappeared through the door did Gustav turn away.

Fishlegs carefully took three books out of the bag, along with a couple pencils and a piece of cloth. All three of the books were made out of leather. The two smaller ones were brown leather, and the large thick book was made out of a nicer, black leather. It was a symbol on it that looked similar to the strike class dragon symbol.

This is the book that Fishlegs looked at first. The cover has intricate designs all around the edge and on the corner. The tidal read “Book of Dragons”, and at the bottom of the cover were three small, almost unreadable letters, “ _ HHH _ ”.

Fishlegs had seen them before, but he couldn’t place where. When he opened the book, the first page looked almost identical to the first page on Berk’s Book of Dragons, except when he looked closer, the dragon classes were different. He frowned a read the classes out loud.

“Stoker, Boulder, Sharp, Tidal, Mystery, Strike… Tracker?” he flipped to the second page, wondering if there was anymore. “Where’s Fear?”

There were more than a few curious things in the book. There was no Fear class, all the Fear class dragons had been moved into Mystery. And the Tracker class included Dragons such as the Nadder, which in Berks Book, was apart of the Sharp Class.

Each dragon had two pages dedicated to it, just like Berks book. But unlike Berk’s book, the second page, which normally heald how to kill it, was different. At the top of the second page of each dragon read  _ Training Tips _ .

Fishlegs flipped through the pages. Non of them had any ways to kill a dragon. There were some pages with no writing at all on the second page. Just vague drawings. Then he got to the Strike class dragons. Surprisingly, all of these dragons were probably the most detailed. Fishlegs was only scanning the pages. Most of the strike class dragons he had heard of before. But then he got to a dragon that he didn’t recognise.

It was medium sized with fully black slim body that looked like it was meant for speed. Long agile wings and little nubs on its head. He looked at the name of it and his heart skipped a beat.  _ Night Fury _ .

Fishlegs heard a door slam downstairs, and then footsteps, and then Astrid burst through his door.

He stood up. She walked over and glanced at the book. “What’s that?”

“Um, the Dragon Riders Book of Dragons.”

“Hm. Ok, I need you’re assistance. Bring the book, it might be helpful.”

“Stoick,  _ no _ ,” Astrid grabbed the mans arm and with some trouble kept him from storming out the door and into the woods.

“Why? We know where those dragon riders are. Why not attack?”

“Because they  _ saw  _ me. They’re probably already gone. And if they’re not, they’’’ be ready for us.”

“More reason to attack while we have the chance! We wont be able to track them when they get too far away.”

“They’re not going to leave,” Fishlegs spoke up. When the chief gave him a questioning look, he shrunk back a bit, but head up the book. “We have this. They won’t let us keep it. I- I’ve been looking through the book. It- It has so many more dragon in here than ours, and so much more info on them. They wouldn’t let us keep something so important.”

Stoick stopped pacing and faced Fishlegs. “ _ How  _ much more info?”

“A-a lot. Look,” He quickly flipped to the Night Fury page and showed Stoick. The mans face remained still, not showing much emotion, but when he met Fishles’ eyes, he could see it. A hot burning rage that ended with a thrust for revenge.

“Do what you have to do,” he said.

Astrid grinned and pulled Fishlegs out of the door.

⥈⥈⥈

Hiccups friends teasing had gotten him thinking. The people on Berk had been horrible to him. The one person who arley said anything was Astrid. The only time she had ever raised her voice at him was during the Dragon Training. Before that, she never really made fun of him too much. But she never stopped it either.

The fact that Astrid was probably the best of them all was probably why his feelings for her had stayed for so long. Well, if two years was considered long. The only people out of his friend who had been there for his mindless rambling about her had been Aasur and near the end Asvor. That was why the two of them teased him about Astrid the most.

The other had only heard about it.

Hiccups feelings for Astrid had disappeared  _ long  _ ago. He wasn’t going to waste his time on someone who, one, probably either forgot his name or still hates him, and two, kills the first thing that had ever shown him respect. If he ever came in contact with her again, it would be to form a very painful alliance that would probably go sour in the end.

Hiccup rolled off where he lay on Toothless’ back and walked down to the waters edge. The water was clear and smooth. There was no wind at the moment so his reflection was almost perfect.

Eventually, after three hours of waiting for the Berkians to show up, the sun went down. Hiccup hopped onto Toothless. Under the cover of the dark, the two of the flew in a circle right over Berk. No one was out. Sure there were the usual scouts, but all the lights in the village were off. There was one candle lit on one of the towers closest to the woods, but Hiccup didn’t think anything of it.

No one was coming to the Cove. So Hiccup went to get the others.

⥈⥈⥈

It an hour after the sun had gone down that Astrid heard it. Voices. But not coming from below. Coming from above. They were very faint, so Astrid couldn’t right away pin point from where in the sky they were coming from, but after a couple second of looking, she saw them.

The most visible dragon was a blue one that seemed to shimer under the moonlight. The most invisible one looked like only a dark outline of a dragon that the stars disappeared behind. Astrid shook Fishlegs awake.

“Come on. They’re back. We have to go see what dragons we’re up against.”

The walk through the woods to the cove took longer than it had when it had just been Astrid. Probably because every minutes Fishlegs would stop and ask nervously if they should really bo doing this, or if she thought it was safe. Most of the time, Astrid would reply with an annoyed grunt.

Finally, they came to the spot when she had seen the two men, and went to the left, so they could go around behind the Cove to spy on them. They peeked over a rock ledge that dropped into the Cove. They were on the side that, if they were to fall, they would land in a small pond.

On the other side, where the beach was, five large dragons, and six figures sat around a fire, talking and laughing.

“-You’re saying that  _ no one  _ came?” a small female voice said.

“Correct,” a male voice responded.

“Geez,” a different female voice said, a laugh on her tone. “I thought that  _ Astrid Hofferson  _ would be smarter than that. Maybe the reputation you put on her was wrong, Triple H.”

Following this remark was laughs. But this made Astrid freeze when she stood. They had said her name. They knew who she was. Slowly, Astrid turned her head to face Fishlegs, whos eyes were wide with fear. 

“How do they know your name?” he whimpered. Astrid could only shrug. “Maybe they’ve heard of you somewhere?”

Astrid ignored this, although she did like the thought of being heard of by people who must have come from as far out as these Dragon Riders. “Nevermind that for now. Tell me about these dragons.”

Fishlegs leaned forward. “Ok, that dragon playing with the Zippleback is a Changewing. We don’t know much about them, but,” he quickly flipped through the Dragon Riders book of dragons. “They do. Mystery class, shoot hot acid, camouflage and hypnosis abilities, wingspan of 30. Attack-9, speed-14, firepower-12, shot limit-10, stealth-20.”

“Ok. Tell me about the others. We need to be quick about this.”

“Ok, the Zippleback, we know pretty much everything about this dragon… although this book says it’s Mystery class, not Fear. Attack-12, speed-10, armor-10, firepower-14, shot limit-6, stealth-22,” Fishlegs paused to flip through the pages. 

“The yellow and orange one is called a Death Song. It has the ability to hypnotise other dragons with it’s call, and then trap it those dragons in something called Death Song Amber. Mystery class. Attack-16, speed-17, armor-16, firepower-13, shot limit-8, sealth-0.”

“What about the one in the water. I’ve never seen that dragon before.”

“That’s because it’s not in the book of dragons,” Fishlegs had already flipped to that page. “It’s called an Antarctic Blue Dayfrill. Closely related to a Scauldron. It takes in water, releases a gas into the water, and then spits it back out. The gas, plus the water plus the air, makes in freeze. Tidal class. Speed-8.3, firepower-6.7, shot limit-9.

“And lastly the Night Fury,” both of them glanced at the man, who was leaning against the large sleeping creature, hidden under the shadow of its shoulder. “It has echolocation, splitting spines for better maneuverability, cloaking with electricity. Strike class. Attack-15, speed-20, armor-18, firepower-14, shot limit-6, stealth-18, intelligence-20.”

Fishlegs looked up and met Astrid’s eyes. His smile fell when he noticed the silence coming from the cove. Both of them turned to see eleven pairs of eyes watching them. Dragon and human alike.

“Not good,” Astrid whispered. “Let’s go.”

With that, she dragged Fishlegs off, and to her surprise, no one followed after them. Or from what she could tell. 


	6. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys,  
> Sorry about the delay, the stress of the past couple days caused me pause for a bit from writing. On that note, if you're in Washington DC, stay safe. It's absolutely horrifying and disgusting whats happening right now, stay safe.  
> -Charlie

The Dragon Riders all seemed to freeze at the same time. So did all the dragons. Hiccup had felt Toothless stiffen. Moments later, Tay, Gee and Wildae stopped playing, Alba lifted his head from the ground, and Elsie shifted uncomfortably where she sat in the water. The Riders recognised the sudden change of the dragons and stopped talking immediately.

Then they heard voices. Whispering, that was loud enough to be heard, but obvious that they thought it was quiet enough to be hidden by the voices of the Riders. But since there was no more other voices, it was quite obvious where the whispering was coming from.

After a heartbeat, all of them moved to confront them, and in the same moment Hiccup motioned for them to stand down. Toothless let out a low, barley hearable, growl. Two heads could ever so slightly be seen over the edge of the Cove wall. The whispering stopped abruptly, and both heads turned in unison to face them.

Hiccup immediately recognized them as Astrid and Fishlegs, so he hunched his shoulders and hid in the shadow of Toothless’ shoulder even more than he had been. Aasur stood up, and in an instant, the heads disappeared and footsteps could be heard retreating away.

Everyone moved at once. Gyda and Luit climbed out of the Cove following after the two Berkians, Asvor, Freyja, and Aasur moved to douse the fire, take down tents, rolls, and clean up any evidence that they had been there, Hiccup hopped onto Toothless and slid his metal leg into the sturup, listening to the satisfying click.

Toothless lowered his body slowly before lifting off into the air. Even though Hiccup could see nothing, Toothless easily followed the sounds of the two vikings taring through the woods in a rush to get back at the village. Hiccup hoped that they might have the book. What other reason would that have just been watching them than to get to know what dragons they had.

And the only dragon that they had an solid info on was the Zippleback, Tay and Gee. 

The dragon and the Dragon Rider glided just above the tree line. In was only a couple hours past midnight, so the sun wouldn’t come up for a bit longer, so the two were hidden under the cover of darkness.

Although Toothless could pretty much hear the vikings the whole time, it was hard to see them. The woods around Berk were farley thick, and Fishlegs and Astrid seem to know this, because whenever they came across a clearing that Hiccup could use as an advantage, they would pass around it. They did this just about until they reached the village. 

It was there that Hiccup pulled upwards on Toothless’ saddle. The hoved in the air for a second, looking at the village that was shadowed from the moon by the large clif that overhung it. Hiccup saw the two figures break out of the woods and into the village. They slowed to a walk and turned around.

Hiccup noted, with a frustrated grunt, that their Book of Dragons was indeed clutched in Fishlegs’ hands.

⥈⥈⥈

Astrid was breathing hard. She was running, fast. From behind she could hear food steps running after them, and above her, she could hear faint wingbeats. But every time she looked to see who it was, should could see nothing. Not even the stars.

She was scared. Not of these people. Even though she had every reason  _ to  _ be scared of these people. They had dragons on their side. No, Astrid was scared of the fact that she  _ had  _ felt a tiny sliver of fear when she had seen the people watching her.  _ And  _ the dragons. Who knew how long they had been there just listening to them. It couldn’t have been long right? Fishlegs and Astrid had looked at them moments before and none of them even seemed a little off.

But she wouldn’t think of that. Not now. She needed to focus on getting back to the village. But it was a little difficult because of Fishlegs nervous whimpering. Whenever they came to a clearing, Astrid went around it, knowing that if they went through it, the dragon flying above them would most likely land, and they would be trapped between the people following them, and that ferocious beast.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of running, they made it to the village. Astrid gasped a little, as if she had been breathing shallowly the entire run. On second thought, it wouldn’t have been weird if she  _ had  _ been breathing shallowly.

The two of them turned around. They could see two blond figured standing, watching them, from the crest of a small hill in the woods. And above the treeline, Astrid could just make out a shape of a large, black dragon. Two dark wings moved up and down fast to keep it steadily in one place. The only color she could see was the poison green of its eyes and a figure dressed in brown sitting atop it.

Then they were gone. Astrid looked at the hill, and found the the two blonds were also gone. 

“They let you  _ go _ ?” Stoick asked.

“ _ Yes _ . It doesn’t make any sense to me either. They had  _ dragons _ , and as good as we are with fighting dragons, they had more than enough dragons and people to fight us off.”

“Hmm,” Stoick sat down and crossed his arms. 

“Sir, I think we have to attack. Sooner rather than later. And, I know that I was the one that said that we should wait, but It’s getting a little more serious. They have five dragons, only one of which we knew a lot of previous to getting this book.”

Stoick watched Astrid silently, his mind reeling. Then he frowned. What was he questioning. They were Berkians. They killed dragons for a living. And he was Stoick the Vast. 

“Ok. Astrid, get together a team to go into the woods. Fishlegs, you stay here, protect that book. I’ll get working on Berks home defences.”

⥈⥈⥈

Hiccup and Toothless hovered silently over Berk, watching them work. All the torches had been lit. There was a line of people outside the forge, waiting to get weapons sharpened. He could make out Stoick standing at the top of the Great Halls stairs, talking to a group of vikings. Ever so often he could hear a cheer come from below.

Another group wasn’t war off, standing in the town center. Talking to them was one Astrid Hofferson. Standing behind her were the younger ones of Berk. Teens and young adults including the twins and Snotlout. Hiccup had seen Fishlegs run into his house with the book. 

Three people stood on each tower, a one singular figure was stationed next to the raid horn, an ax in hand.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup saw Aasur and Wildae fly up. 

“They’re preparing to attack,” He remarked. “If all of them are coming, then we don’t stand a chance. We have to go, Hiccup.”

“No. We have to get that book. Don’t worry, we’re not going to try and fight them. Is everyone ready to head out?”

Aasur nodded. “Everyone is packed. Hiccup, I think now might be a good idea to tell us your plan. Because at the moment, it looks an awful lot like you’re surrendering.”

Hiccup shook his head. “No, we’re not. You head back to the cove, tell everyone to wait for my signal, I’m going to try and run them off course.”

“Hiccup, remember, they didn’t come last time. We were driven off course, and then we got arrogant.”

“I know, I know. I have Toothless, we’ll be fine.”

⥈⥈⥈

Astrid looked out at the group of people. They were all, give or take, her age. Snotlout at the twins stood directly behind her. At the front of the group was Gustav and his little gang of wannabe warriors. Then behind them were the ones that were a little less enthusiastic to be there. They were in their late 20’s, most of them born to large families, and due to that fact, they had never been told that they were important, so they didnt really care about life anymore.

“Ok, listen up. We have enemies on our island. They are allies with out biggest threat… dragons.” The teens at the front seemed to perk up a bit at this. “We, along with the chief and a few others, are going into the woods to capture them. Now, this will not be an easy task, so you cannot get arrogant.”

Astrid made a point of staring down Gustav, who only stuck out his chest and smiled a little.

“We’re going to split into three groups. Group 1 and group 2 will go at the cove from the sides, group 3 will head straight into the cove. We’ll hopefully draw all the attention of these-” Astrid quickly thought of what to call them. “Dragon riders. And then the side groups will attack.

“Gustav, you’re going to be a leader of one of the groups.”

The man’s eyes widened. He grinned and high fived Dane.

Stoick made his way over to Astrid and faced the group. “I assume Astrid had cued you in on what we’re doing by now. So go get ready. Bring nothing that wont be important. All you need is a weapon, and some armor.”

Everyone dispersed and Stoick turned to Astrid. “Get nets and bolas, if they fly off then we’ll want a way to shoot them down.”

⥈⥈⥈

“Ok, they’ve got three teams headed our way. I assume that two will go around back, so be aware of them, but don’t let in on that you know they’re there, got it?” Aasur asked.

“Yes. And Triple H is going to be leading them off?”

“Hopefully he’ll take care of one of the teams. Lead them off course a little bit. I guess he’ll signal us if something goes wrong.”

The riders nodded as they finished putting on their leather armor. It was a little risky. Normally they had more proper armor for battle. Their dragon scale armor. The leather armor was meant for training or, occasionally, riding.

Once done, they all pretty much just sat around, waiting for the Berkian’s to show up.

Stoick walked at the front of Astrid’s group. She stood directly behind him, and behind her, was the twins, Snotlout, and Fishlegs. The other teams stood to either side of them. The team to his left was being lead by--against Stoick’s wishes--Gustav. The group to the right was being lead by Gobber.

“We’re getting close,” Astrid said. “We’re maybe about five… minutes-” Astrid stopped walking and squinted. “Sir? Look-” she pointed directly in front of their group. Standing there, not even seeming to try to hide himself, was one of the dragon riders. He was dressed in brown and black leather. The only part of him that you could see was his eyes, which looked to be green, and his hands.

A growl came from behind him and a Night Fury stepped into view, it’s teeth bared.

Stoick mimicked the growl and reached over his shoulder. He took the large ax off his back and stepped towards the man and the Night Fury.

“I’ll take ‘im. You all keep going’ to the cove.”

Without saying anything in response, the three groups advanced past Stoick. When his path was cleared, the man no longer stood in front of him. But a russell brought his attention to the side. He followed where the noise had come from. It lead him into a small clearing, in witch the man stood in the center of.

His planned had gone south. Kind of. Hiccup had gotten  _ one  _ of the Berkians to follow. His father. Which, was good for the other riders, but Hiccup wasn’t to psyched about it. Sure, he had gotten  _ a lot  _ better at fighting. He could probably beat Snotlout it a fight. Definitely the twins or Fishlegs. Astrid would be a close one, but he had a good chance.

But  _ Stoick _ ? Hiccup wasn’t too sure about that one. What was going for him was his speed and agility. Stoick had the size and strength factor on his side. Hiccup did have Toothless, but the damn dragon was no where to be seen, probably hiding in the bushes waiting for his opportunity.

The large man made his way into the clearing, a large ax that looked like it was bigger than Hiccup’s head clutched in his grip. Hiccup didn’t draw any weapon. Not yet. He had two at his disposal. A gronckle iron sword, which would easily be able to mangle Stoick’s weapon enough to disarm him, but that was probably a bad idea because Hiccup didn’t stand a chance in a hand to hand battle. 

Then he had Inferno. He would prefer not to have to draw that, mostly because, even though he didn’t like his father, he would prefer not to hurt him. And maybe having an unknown fire sword would be a nice surprise for the future.

Stoick snarled and looked around. “Where is that dragon?”

Hiccup shrugged lightly. He truly, still didn’t have any clue. But then he heard a low growl coming from his left. Stoick whipped towards the sound. Toothless stalked out of the bushes, his teeth bared. Without saying anything, Hiccup made a motion with his right hand. Seeing this, Toothless raised his nose to the sky and let out one singular plasma blast into the air. 

A purple ring spread out just above the tree-line. 

“Uh, so I’m guessing something went wrong?” Gyda said. “Should we go help?”

Aasur shook his head. “No. He’ll be find. He has Toothless.”

Aasur climbed onto Wildae. He was about to take off when Freyja let out a shriek. She had been grabbed from behind by a Berkian, who Aasur immediately recognised as Astrid. Before anyone could do anything, a net was thrown over Elsie, who was attempting to fly out of the water, but due to her size and smaller wings, she was slow.

The dragon threw ice at anyone in sight, and Freyja elbowed her way out of Astrid grip. She turned, drawing out her spear, but Astrid charged. She tackled Freyja around the waist, throwing her down and pinning her to the ground. Her spear was kicked away and her hands pinned to her back.

The Riders noticed with horror that Elsie was out of water, and her head head and body had been pinned down and tied up. She was already being dragged away.

“Freyja!” Aasur yelled. 

The Rider craned her neck to look at him. “Go! I’ll be fine! Get Hic- get Toothless and Triple H and go!”

Aasur was about to rush to attack the Berkians, but felt the unmistakable iron grip of Liut wrapped around his waist, holding him back. He struggled to get free, but in a matter of seconds, Wildae grabbed onto the back of his armor and they were flying off. Once they were high up in the clouds, Wildae flipped Aasur up onto his back.

“We have to go get them!” Aasur cried, and he pushed down on the saddle. The dragon below him growled in protest.

Asvor, always the voice of reason, spoke up. “Aasur, you heard her. We need to go get Hiccup. He’ll creat a plan and we’ll have Freyja and Elsie back in no time, I promise.”

Aasur said nothing in response, but the other new that for him, silence was good, so they directed their dragons down to the general vicinity of where they had seen the plasma blast go off. There was Hiccup. He looked ridiculous, running around the clearing he was in, followed by a large man that Aasur recognised as the chief. He hadn’t pulled either of his swords.

“ _ Did you kill my son! _ ” Aasur heard the older man yell. Hiccup seemed to faulter mid-step. He stumbled, which caused the distance between the two men to close slightly. “ _ That Night Fury killed my son! Did you devil humans have anything to do with it!” _

Hiccup still didn’t respond. Aasur noticed Toothless, prowling at the edge of the clearing and whistled. The dragon looked up and Aasur pointed to Hiccup. Knowing what he meant, Toothless jumped forward, grabbing onto Hiccup and throwing him up into the air. Hiccup yelped in surprise, but fell into the dragon saddle easily. They took off and flew up to the group.

“That got a little too personal,” Hiccup said with a pained expression. “And didn’t go as…” He trailed off and looked around at the group of Riders. “Where’s Fryeja?”

Aasur clenched his jaw and looked down. It was all Hiccup needed for confirmation, and he let out an angry yell.

⥈⥈⥈

Freyja sat against the rock wall, her elbows rested limply on her knees. She was watching Elsie from outside the cage door when she heard a scuttle come from the darkest corner. She watched for a second, then a light yellow Terrible Terror walked slowly from the shadows.

Freyja moved towards it, and out of fear, it opened its mouth to shoot fire at her. She dusked down, but nothing came out, only a little spark. It didn’t have any fire, which meant it hadn’t eaten. Freyja picked up the small piece of stale bread that the Berkians, to her surprise, had given her not to long ago.

The dragon stiffed at it for a second, before eating it whole. He looked at Freyja for a moment, and then walked up to her. It nestled itself in her lap, and fell asleep. Freyja sighed and peaked out the door again.

Elsie was lying on the rock floor, already exhausted from not being in the water fro a while. She was chained to the ground, torches all around her, which would dry out her skin much quicker than from just regular sun. There were only five people guarding her, but one of them was sitting on the ground against the wall, his face buried in a book.

Fishlegs looked at the page of the Dayfrill. There colors ranged from dark purples to light greens. This specific one was different shades of blue metallic. It’s smaller than a Souldron, but larger than a Sea Shocker. The Dragon looked similar to a Shock Jaw, but with rounder wings and a large stomach, probably meant to hold a lot of water.

He could already tell that its scales were loosing the vibrant color that they had heald whet it was first brought it. Almost immediately, Fishlegs identified it was a female. In the book, it said that Male Dayfrills normally have two bright red lines on their shoulders that went down the front of its wings. This dragon had no such marks.

Fishlegs new that the dragon was most likely loosing its color due to the fire around it. That was what happened to Tidal class dragons. But He had never seen it happen this quickly before. The dragon didn’t only seem pale, but it was tired. At the moment, it was asleep, slumped to the ground, no longer even attempting to break out of its binds.

Fishlegs frowned. Why did he feal sorry for it?

⥈⥈⥈

Hiccup dug his hands into his hair and paced across the beach. The other Riders stood silently watching him. After Liut and Gyda had taken a short flight to look for Freyja and Elsie, they had learned that Else was chained to the ground in the arena, fire torchest circling her. They hadn’t seen Freyja anywhere.

So, Hiccup was planning. His brain felt like it was going to pop with all the information running in and out of it. All sorts of different scenarios came to mind when he thought of another way of rescuing her. The crunch of the sand beneath his feet wasn’t helping him think.

Toothless crooned quietly, bringing the Riders attention to his dragon. He sat back on his haunches and waddled around in a circle, pointing his noes in the direction of the mountain that stood between Berk and them.

“I know, bud, we’ll get them back.”

The dragon huffed and glared at Hiccup. He bumped his head into his side. Hiccup gave him an exasperated look. 

“What?”

The dragon stood up again, this time waving his hands around and opening and closing his mouth, almost like he was mocking human speech. Hiccup sighed.

“This isn’t a time for jokes, Toothless. I need to think.”

The dragon gave a low growl. Then he leapt forward, grabbed Hiccups prosthetic leg and dragged him off towards the woods. Hiccup yelped in surprise.

“Hey! Let me go!”

The other Riders did nothing. They just watched them go, to tired to care. They new that Toothless wouldn’t do anything stupid. 

Toothless finally let go of Hiccups leg when they reached the top of a smaller peak that over looked the docks. The dragon grumbled again and pointed with his head towards the Great Hall, again miniking the speaking motion.

“What? The Great Hall? Yeah, I’ve seen it before, it really is quite great.” Hiccup turned away but Toothless hit him with his tail. He turned back. “What is wrong with you? I’m trying to save our friends, so, your not helping.”

The dragon’s face fell. Then he grabbed and large stick and started dragging it around Hiccup, who followed the Night Fury’s movements curiously. When he finished, Toothless stuck the stick in the ground hard. He made a regal face and leaned back on his hind legs again.

Frowning, Hiccup looked back at Berk. He noticed for the first time that there were people filing up the stairs into the Hall.

“The Great Hall,” he whispered. Then he gasped. “The Great Hall!”

“Woah, woah, woah,  _ what _ ?” Aasur said, following Hiccup as he rushed to get Toothless’ saddle back on, while also putting on his armor. “Hiccup.  _ Hiccup _ ,” The Rider looked at his friend, his eyes bright. “We’re a  _ team _ . You have to tell us your plan. Because remember, whenever you dont tell us the full plan, it doesn’t exactly go right for us.”

Hiccup nodded and finished attaching Toothless’ tail. “It’s the end of the week, nearly the whole village it going to be in the Great Hall for hours for the weekly meeting. That will leave not very many people out to guard Elsie and Freyja. We’ll be able to get in quickly, quietly, and if we succeed, we’ll not only get Elsie and Freyja, but we’ll also get my books.”

“Ok. So…?” Aasur prompted him say the plan a little farther than the fact that Berk is in some big meeting.

“ _ So _ , we’re all going to go get Elsie and Freyja, then I’ll go get the books.”

“What about us?” a voice asked from the direction of the water. Both Hiccup and Aasur spun towards the voice. And there, jumping off the back of a Razorwhip, was Heather, closely followed by her team.

“Heather!” Hiccup called out. He grinned and greeted her with a hug. “Did Valka send you?”

“Yes. She also sent this-” Heather pointed towards her dragon strapped to it was a set of black dragon scale armor. “Your armor. And everyone else's. We had a scare about Aasur’s a moment, but then remembered that it can turn invisible.”

Hiccup laughed and unstrapped his armor from Windshears saddle. “Thank you, it’ll help a lot. I was nervous about going in without proper armor, so this is  _ really  _ helpful.”

“Ok, and about  _ that _ . We heard about what happened with the books. You’re going to get them now?”

“Yes. And, um, two other, much more important, things.”

Heather seemed to notice for the first time that Freyja and Elsie were missing. Her jaw clenched. “Oh. What can we do?”

“Fly above Berk while we go in. If anything goes wrong, you guys come down to help.”

She nodded while Hiccup and the others switched out of their leather armor into the dragon scale armor. Hiccup smiled. He felt more safe in this armor. Mostly because he liked to be as close to Toothless as he could, and wearing his scales did help a lot. Once everyone had changed, they put Elsies armor into the small abandoned storage house and hopped onto their dragons.

The Dragons Riders landed just outside of the village. They walked through the shadows, carful not to make to much noise. When they came across a villager, they would duck behind the nearest building, and wait for them to pass. Finally, they made it to the arena. Aasur peaked over the edge. There were four people guarding the dragon, who had lost almost all of her normal beautiful blue color, and a small brown haired girl that could be seen leaning against the stone wall.

Aasur hopped back down. “Theres only four people there.”

Gyda laughed slightly. “How weird. Lets go.”

For this part, they didn’t even try to be stealthy, there was no point. They walked right up to the gate and threw it open. Almost immediately, the four guards rushed over, each wielding a weapon. The one at the front, Astrid, heald an ax, the black haired man behind her heald a long sword in one hand, and a hammer in the other. The male twin heald a mace, and the female twin heald a sword.

“I think It would be easier for you to just put the weapons down and let us take back our friends. We wouldn’t want this to get messy,” Aasur snarked.

The one with the back hair snorted. “Over my dead body, traitors.” This one, Aasur decided, he didn’t like. So that was the one that he attacked. Their swords met, the man growled angrily. “You really think you can beat me? The only reason im not the heir is because the chief still thinks his stupid son is still alive.”

This caused Aasur to falter. His sword slid off the mans sword, but before he could use it to his advantage, Aasur used his speed to knock both his weapons out of his hands. He turned to find that each of the Berkians was either on the ground, or being heald at sword point. Hiccup was around hacking through the chains wrapped around Elsie.

With one swift hit with the flat of his blade, Aasur knocked out the black haired man and moved towards Freyja, who smiled up at him. He quickly cut through the lock and threw open the door. Freyja stood up and hugged him. A small yellow Terrible Terror was clinging to her side. It seemed to be asleep.

Hiccup finished cutting away Elsie’s chains. Wildae and Tay and Gee lifted Elsie out of the arena, and Alba froze the four Berkians in Death Song amber. The Riders ran out of the arena.

Hiccup was about to make his way up to the village where he would go find the books, when Freyja grabbed his arm. She looked at him with frantic eyes.

“Hiccup, there are other dragons in there. You have to get them.”

He smiled. “I’ll get them after I get the books. I promise. For now you need to go with them. I’ll be back soon.”

Freyja nodded carefully before hopping onto Wildae with Aasur. Hiccup made ure that they got Elsie into the water before heading up to the village. Navigating through the village wasn’t too hard. He remembered mostly everything about the place, and unsurprisingly, there were no new buildings. Or at least, no new building that didn’t count rebuild buildings.

So Hiccup and Toothless made it to Fishlegs house easily. He assumed that since he wasn’t with the others in the arena, that he was in his house with the books. The dragon and his rider went around to th back of Fishlegs’ house and climbed through the window that lead into his room.

Fishlegs was there, leaning over her desk, where the Book of Dragons sat, next to a small shoulder bag. When they entered, Fishlegs shot out of his chair, holding up a pencil in defence, his eyes wide with fright.

“Who are you?” He demanded. “If you’re here for the book you cant have it.”

Hiccup snorted and moved towards the desk. As Hiccup suspected, Fishlegs jumped back, leaving the desk and the books wide open. He fumbled behind him, taking hold of a small hatchet. With one singular blast, Toothless shot the weapon out of his hands. Fishlegs shrieked, and Hiccup grabbed the Book of Dragons and his shoulder bag.

He quickly stowed the book away and flung the bag over his shoulder. Hiccup waved once at Fishlegs, who flinched. Hiccup and Toothless jumped out of the window and took off back towards the arena. The gang was arguing. Snotlout had woken up, and was screaming at the twins. Astrid was screaming at Snotlout, and the twins were screaming at eachother.

But when Hiccup jumped down into the arena with a soft thump, they all froze. The only two people who could comfortably look at him were Astrid and Tuffnut. Snotlout twisted his head as much as he could and Ruffnut had to bend her head backwards. Hiccup carefully went to each of the dragon cages.

He opened each one at a time. At first the dragons would come out aggressive, but once Hiccup showed him he meant no harm, they calmed down. In the arena cages, was a brown colored Gronkle, a blue shimmery Nadder, a red Nightmare, and a common green colored Zippleback.

The gang asked Hiccup all sorts of questions. ‘Who are you?’, ‘Where did you come from?’ ‘Why are those dragons listening to you?’ ‘What is this stuff that you put us in?’ ‘How do we get out of it?’

Hiccup ignored all these questions and left the arena, also leaving them to figure out the Death Song Amber on their own.

Aasur and the others had just made it back to the beach. The immediately placed Elsie into the water, Freyja stood, clutching Aasur, by the side of the water, watching nervously as her dragon sat still for a second. She grinned when the color of the Dayfrill rushed back and the dragon splashed happily.

Six other dragons landed. Team two. The largest dragon, a Timberjack, named Verdani, landed a little farther away from the group due to its side. Its rider slid down one of its long wings down to the ground and walked towards the camp. Aasur met him half way.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” Aasvieg said. 

Aasur laughed. “Me too, brother.”

The two hugged. They had always had a complicated relationship. Half the time they acted like brothers, the other half of the time they acted like complete strangers, who had barley even spoken to each other. But they did care for each other. Siblings would care, but never say that outloud. That was what it was like for them.

Another six dragons came into view over one of the short peaks, lead by a mid night black dragon that was already starting to fade into the twilight.

To Aasurs surprise, Hiccup wasn’t smiling when he pulled off his helmet and jogged over to the group. Even though slung over his shoulder was his shoulder bag, and under his arm was the Book of Dragons. He didn’t say a word when he came over. He only knelt down and flipped open the book. 

Within the pages was a hand written note addressed to the Dragon Riders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that I have a Pinterest board with some stuff that kinda shows what I was picturing like, clothes and people while writing this. :)  
> Username- hotcidergay  
> Also, thank you for 30 kudos!  
> And, I might be re-writing the prologue and the first bit of the first chapter, like the bit before Aasur and Eydis find Hiccup. Just thought I'd let you know. The next chapter might be put off a little bit because of that.  
> -Charlie


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THAT THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE! I don't even really have an excuse. I just kept forgetting. This is a shorter chapter than normal, but hopefully I'll have another chapter out soon :)  
> ALSO, thank you so much for 74 kudos!!

Twelve dragon riders sat around a small table that they had dragged from the corner of the old abandoned storage house. The book sat in the middle, the note placed on top of it. Only one dragon could fit in the small building, so, naturally, Toothless lay stretched out behind Hiccups chair.

“They new we were coming,” Liut said.

Hiccup nodded. “Yup.”

“They  _ let  _ us take the book and Freyja and Elsie.”

Hiccup nodded again and rested his forehead against the table. The note read:  _ We want to assemble a meeting at noon tomorrow. Only two of you, un-armed _ .

“It’s in Stoicks hand writing,” Hiccup said, his voice muffled by his arms. He was miserable. Not only because he was stuck on the island full of people who hated his guts, but also because once again, he was putting all his friends, especially Toothless and the other dragons, in danger.

“What do we do?” Eret asked.

Hiccup let out a pained sigh and pulled up from the table, this time resting his chin on his fist. “Aasur and I will go to this meeting. I think it’s out only option.”

Aasur scoffed. “What do you mean out  _ only  _ option. We should just leave. They’ll probably just forget and move on. It obvious that they’ll just attack us. So I don't see the point in going.”

Hiccup shook his head and squeezed the bridge of his noes. “No, we have to go. My… father,” he frowned, as if he were confused as to why he was called the man this. “He doesn’t- he  _ didn’t _ at least, usually call meeting unless it was important. And- and they’ve seen my notes, so they probably know the location of the sanctuary is, so if we were to just leave, they could find there way to our home.”

Aasurs smiled fell. “Hiccup, its a trap. The note said  _ without weapons _ , which means they’re probably going to attack us.”

“That’s why we  _ wont _ be going unarmed,” he stood and pointed at the sleepy Night Fury behind him. “We have  _ dragons _ . We’ll bring weapons we haven't used against them yet. For you, you’re knives, and for me, Inferno. Wildae and Toothless will stay hidden somewhere outside the village. You all, will hide above Berk in the clouds. Both parties can come help if something goes wrong.”

No one responded. It was a risky mission, that none of them really wanted to go through with. But, Hiccup was right. Everything he had said was right. They new that they were going to have to go to the village to have this meeting with Stoick and the Berkians.

Hiccup leaned back in his chair and placed his hands in his lap. “We should get some rest. Aasur and I will be up early to get ready for the meeting. If you all want to be up at that time as well, you can, but it’s not needed.”

“No,” Heather sat up a little straighter. “We’ll be up. Right now, all of us are a team.”

⥈⥈⥈

It took them almost the whole night to figure out how to get Astrid and the other young adults out of the weird orange rock. By the end of the experience, Astrid was tired and angry. So, after she had to burn her clothes because they couldn't figure out a way to get the remaining orange stuff off, and then finding out that the dragon riders had accepted their meeting request and we going to be here any minute, Astrid was fuming.

She wore a pair of her mothers extra clothes, and due to the fact that her mother was built larger than Astrid, particular around the shoulder and hips. The clothes did not fit at all. Astrid looked as if she hadn’t eaten in years and the clothes that she had worn her whole life didn’t fit anymore.

The soldier sat on top of the one of the watch towers, her legs hanging carelessly off the side, her ax stuck in the wood beside her. She was sitting like this when she saw the two figures emerge out of the woods. One was masked, the other not.

The one that showed his face, Astrid recognised him as the man from the woods. He had black hair, like she remember. It was slicked back and cut short on the sides. Both the times that she had seen him, the first in the woods and the second in the arena, he had been wearing thick armor that made him look huge. Right now, he was dressed in all black clothes, which didn’t make him look too threatening.

The one wearing the mask stumped her a bit. He didn't look very strong. He was dressed in leather clothes with black and brown straps crossing over his front. And a brown helmet covering his head and face, all but little tufts of brown hair sticking out of the back.

Neither of them carried any weapons. Not even the peculiar swords that they had carried the day previous.

After watching them for a moment, Astrid leapt to her feet and slid--rather than climbed--down the ladder. She hopped down the last four or five rungs. Astrid ran the rest of the way to the hall, determined to be there when the riders arrived.

⥈⥈⥈

Just looking at the two of them, Hiccup and Aasur didn’t look too threatening. Aasur had the body type that was very strong, and most of the time you could tell so, but when he was covered in clothes, you could barley see any muscle. Hiccup was lanky. Many people upon first meeting him would laugh and ask if we were really sure this was the guy they’d been hearing about.

But, Hiccup was actually really stong from how he looked.

Aasur shifted his coat, making sure that the Berkians wouldn’t be able to see the knives concealed there. He carried four knives with him. Two of which had been made out of two of Wildae’s teeth, and had been sharped into needles. Then he had one Gronckle Iron knife, and another knife that his father had given him when he was eight.

Hiccup had his fire sword, Inferno. But it was attached to his thigh, so it just looked like it could be a weird pocket or something. Hiccup had said that it was safe to bring the sword because none of the Berkians were apparently smart enough to realize what it was.

Aasur tried to ignore the glares that he got from the Berkians as the two of them walked through the town. They headed straight for the Great Hall, and tried not to make any eye contact with anyone. 

Hiccup walked up right behind Aasur’s shoulder.

“They’re scared. Most of these people probably didn’t even think we were going to actually show up. And we look pretty intimidating. I mean, you have tattoos covering your whole neck and I’m wearing a mask hiding my face.”

The place was probably the most elegant of the village. All the houses weren’t much. Made out of wood and some metal. But the great hall, positioned at the top of the hill, inside most of the mountain, had two huge wooden doors and on either side was two huge stone statues.

Standing at the doors was the chief, decked out with two swords and an ax. His arms were crossed. Aasur scowled and prayed to the gods that this  _ wasn’t  _ an ambush. But really, why would someone ask for you not to bring weapons, and then have three of them on one persons disposal if it wasn’t going to be an ambush.

The large chief opened the doors. To Aasur’s surprise, his face heald no emotion. No anger or hatred towards them. But there wasn’t a welcoming smile either. The inside of the Great Hall was just had Hiccup had explained. One large, almost complete circular table in the middle. A large wooden chair taken up the ‘almost’ complete part of it. Other square tables were pushed hastily to the sides. 

The walls were lined with torches and paintings of who Aasur guessed were previous Chief’s and their Heirs. 

Aasur remembered what the black haired boy had said-- _ ‘The chief still thinks his stupid son is still alive’ _ \--and looked hopefully for Hiccup’s picture. But the paintings ended with a large blond man and his large blond son. There was a blank shield where another painting should have been.

Hiccup bumped into Aasur shoulder and he looked to find all the people there watching him. There was less people that he thought there would be. Around ten people. The chief stood in the middle of them, his hands on his hips. To his right was a large man with a long mustache, a man with black hair and a helmet with long horns.

Then there was a small woman with grey hair and a staff twice her size. She was the only one smiling. Next to her was a blond woman with a deep frown, who was crossing her arms.

On the chief’s left, Aasur recognised the young adults he had fought the day pervious, the only one he didn’t recognise was a boy with blond hair and a nervous look, who was shaking all over.

Astrid, the girl at the front, was sending a ferocious glare that made the corner of Aasur’s mouth twitch and he failed miserably to try and not send a mocking look.

“I’m glad you chose to join us today,” Stoick said. His voice made the already awkward situation even more awkward. He cleared his throat. “So, ah, shall we sit down?”

Aasur laughed. “Please.”

They all sat. The chief in the large table, the other Berkians on wither side of him. Aasur and Hiccup sat directly across from Stoick, leaving an uncomfortable amount of distance between the Berkians and the Riders. Aasur made eye contact with Astrid and the two of them heald a glare for a bit.

The Chief, noticing this, cleared his throat again and leaned an elbow against the edge of the table to his right.

“So, um, I’ve called this meeting to talk to you about your dragons.”

Aasur smiled and leaned forward. He clasped his hands together and placed them on the table. Hiccup, however, did almost the opposite. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms defiantly. Aasur refrained from giving him a scowl. It had been his idea to come after all.

“What about them?” Aasur asked. “We haven't done anything wrong. You keep taking our friends so we keep taking them back.”

Stoick clasped his hand in front of him and without any fear, met Aasurs eyes. “Not that. I mean, that is apart of it. But you all seem to have found a way to control the beasts, and-”

“Dragon. They’re dragons. Call them that,” Aasur interrupted before he could finish. “And we don’t  _ control  _ them.”

“Fine. You seem to have found a way to…  _ command  _ the  _ dragons _ ,” He met Aasurs glare with one of his own. “And we want to know how you did it. We’ve read your book. You’ve obviously trained them. We want you to train dragons for us.”

Beside Aasur, Hiccup let out a snort. It drew the attention in the room to him. Astrid stood up.

“I’m sorry, have we said something wrong?” She snapped. “Who even are you?”

Hiccup said nothing. Aasur leaned forward. “Uh… the-the Dragon… Master.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Hiccups gloved hand curl into a fist. He hated the word Master, especially when talking about dragons. But it was the first thing that had come to mind. Over the past five years, Hiccup had gathered quite a large about of names for himself. A lot of people around the Archipelago knew of the man who rode the black dragon. 

The Night Rider was a popular one. Also the Night Fury Tamer, which was probably Hiccups least favorite because he said he befriended Toothless. There were others like the Dragon Conqueror or the Dragon Whisperer. Hiccups favorite’s were definitely the Dragon Trainer and Dragon Rider. But one what stuck the most was Dragon Master.

Which was also Aasur’s personal favorite, mostly because it sounded cool. That was why he had chosen to call Hiccup that.

Hiccup tilted his head slightly to the side. If any of the Berkians had seen the movement, they probably would have just thought that it was him acknowledging the title. But Aasur knew that it was really Hiccup glaring at him out of the corner of his eye.

Astrid looked at Hiccup suspiciously. “Why is he masked?”

Aasur shrugged. “Why do you carry an axe? It’s for protection.”

“Nevermind that,” Stoick said. “Back to the matter at hand. We want you to train dragons for us. These kids here, are the ones who you’ll be training them for.”

The rider let out a laugh. “We can’t train them  _ for  _ you. You have to do that part. We can train you a get you ready to train them. We can help you and give you tips. But you have to train them yourselves.”

The Chief frowned. “Oh. Why?”

“Because a dragon and a rider have a special bond. If we were to train a dragon for you, the dragon would create that bond with us. Not you.”

Jaw clenching, the chief seemed to think about this. “These kids have agreed with much convincing that they would ride dragons. I said nothing about them having to train them.”

Aasur pursed his lips and stood up, leaning forward slightly. “Well, then I guess this meeting’s over. It was nice talking to you, but I think we’ll both be going now.”

The two of them stood up and moved towards the door. The chief launched out of his chair. “Wait, no! They’ll train them!”

Grumbles of frustration came from the young adults, but they didn’t argue. Aasur smiled and looked over his shoulder at the strange scene before him. It shouldn’t be strange, of course. Aasur was the son of a chief. Well, somewhat of a chief. Now, he was the son of the dragon riders leader. But they weren’t actually related.

The point is that Aasur should be used to diplomatic meetings by know. He went to a lot of them. But this was knew. Having a meeting with an enemy tribe who killed dragons. And those who were lead by his best friends dad who he hated.

“Great. Meet us in the morning at your arena,” the began to walk away, but them Aasur turned back. “Oh, and by the way, dragons are smart creatures. When it comes between two groups, and one of them is trying to use them, they’ll choose those who actually care for their well being.”

⥈⥈⥈

At first, Astrid was confused at what the man had been suggesting by saying that. Then she remembered what the chief had said to her earlier.  _ ‘We’ll use the dragons that they train us against them.’  _ What still confused Astrid was how to man had known.

Just by looking at Stoick, you could tell that he also understood what the man had meant, and he was furious. His hands were clenched so tight that his knuckles had turned white. His face was as red as a fresh tomato and his eyes looked like they were on the verge of popping right out of his skull.

Astrid was only angry that her glare sisn’t seem to have scared either of the men. Normally, all Astrid had to do was send a mean look at she’d send tough men running for the hills. But the riders hadn’t even seemed perturbed. Not only that, but the larger one had had the audacity to laugh at her.

And as much as  _ he  _ made her mad, the other one made her even angrier. She couldn’t see his face, but his posture had suggested that he wasn’t the least bit intimidated. He had even seemed a little bit bored, if Astrid thought back.

From the beginning, the masked man--or Dragon Master, as the other guy had called him--intrigued her. Each time they had come into contact, he had never spoken a single word, and unlike the other, he was always wearing a mask or covering his face somehow.

She was almost certain that he was the other man that she had seen in the woods. The one who’s face the other guy had hidden from her.

And then there was the dragon. The Night Fury. When she had been spying on the riders, she had noticed a long scar on it’s left shoulder. It was the same scar that she had seen on the dragon that had taken Hiccup.

If it was the same dragon, and Astrid was convinced it was, the Night Fury that the Dragon Master rode is the one that killed Hiccup.

⥈⥈⥈

As soon as they were into the woods, Hiccup pulled of his helmet and glared daggers at Aasur.

“ _ Dragon Master _ ?”

Aasur laughed. “What? It’s not liked We’re ever gonna speak to them again.”

Hiccup cringed and looked away. “Well…”

Aasur’s grin fell and Hiccup sped away from him. Aasur realized what he meant and his eyes widened. He ran up and grabbed Hiccup’s elbow.

“ _ Hiccup _ , you’re not actually  _ considering  _ this are you?” In response, Hiccup only shrugged. Aasur’s jaw dropped. “We  _ cannot _ do that.”

“Cannot do what?” A voice said from above. Aasur looked up as the other riders landed and slid off their dragons.

Aasur planted his hands on his hips and shoved Hiccup’s shoulder slightly. “They want us to help them train dragons. And smarty here thinks we should do it.”

Almost immediately, the group erupted into outraged gasps and remarks, mostly towards Hiccup, who looked really tired.

“Would you just let me explain?” He said. And almost as quickly as they had started, the riders quieted down. “Look, I don't want to help these people any more than any of you guys do. I hate them, and I’d like nothing more than to just leave and never come back. But I think we owe this to the dragons.”

Everyone was silent, not quite yet understanding what he meant. So, Hiccup continued. “The vikings are the number one source of dragon deaths, Berk more than anyone, so, if we have a chance to change their minds, even just a little bit, then I think we have to take it.”

Realization bloomed across the riders faces, then confusion. 

“You really think we can change their minds?” Gyda piped up.

Hiccup shrugged and met her eyes. “We’ll never know until we try, right? And plus, we wont even have to convince the whole village, we only have to convince the young adults, and the chief. Maybe not even the young adults. If we convince Stoick, the rest of the village will listen.”

Toothless, who was caught up to them without anyone noticing, cooed and bumped into Hiccups side. Hiccup laughed. “I think Toothless is in. What about all you?”

Hiccup hovered his hand over the middle of the group. Asvor, who was always the voice of reason, put her hand in first. Then, slowly, the rest of the group, leaving only Aasur’s hand hanging limply at his sides. Hiccup met his eyes and gave him a pleading look. The rider gulped.

“I trust you, and if you think that if what we need to do, then I’m in,” and he placed he hand in the center.

Words: 3264

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made Hiccup have the nickname 'triple H' by the riders. I thought it was fun but It wouldn't have made sense if I had suddenly just put it in. So I went back and added it in a few different places :)


	8. Chapter 6

Even though there was still a few hours until the sun would rise, and there was still a layer of frost covering the entire village, two people were awake at the time. 

The first was the Dragon Master. He walked idly thought the town without any sort of destination on his mind. He was just there to look around and see what was different from when he had been there last. He wasn’t surprised to find that almost everything was the same. 

The wood on the houses seemed older and more chipped than it normally was, probably due to the fact that they Berkians rarely got raided by dragons anymore. Though there was evidence that there had been dragons there recently. There was scorch marks on the top of some of the buildings.

Hiccup thought curiously if they were from when his team had rescued him.  _ It was a possibility _ , he thought.

Without even realizing, Hiccup made his way over the the forge. It seemed to be the only place that had changed. The old, rotting wood had been replaced with a new finished look and metal plating in some places. Gobber had replaced his bucket of appendages with a turning wheel sort of thing with little shelves to place the swap out hands on.

He walked carefully, making sure not to bump into anything, so he wouldn’t make any noise. Hiccup caught his reflection in a shimmery mirror like thing leaned up against a wall and flinched away. Not because he was scared of his reflection, but because he wore no helmet, and had thought for a milla second that someone might have been standing there.

After realizing that it wasn’t actually anyone but his own reflection, Hiccup stood up to his full height again. He had changed a lot since they had seen him. Maybe they wouldn’t recognise him? Hiccup shook the thought away. On the slight off chance that they wouldn’t recognise him, it was too risky. Because if they did, it was over.

The room placed at the back of the forge had served as Hiccups work area. When he had left, he had taken almost everything of importance. All his drawing that detailed how Toothless’ tail and sturup worked had been taken, along with most of his tools. Only the ones that he used the most though. Hiccup was surprised to find that the tools that he had left behind still sat laid out carefully on a work bench. They had collected a layer of dust over the years.

He slowly picked one up and dusted it off carefully. The leather that wrapped around the handel was pealing slightly, probably due to not being cared for at all. Hiccup found some spare leather and unwrapped the leather around the handel. Carefully, Hiccup replaced the old leather with the new, securing it tightly. He did this to each of the tools.  He looked down at the newly wrapped tools and frowned. Hiccup wasn’t really sure  _ why  _ he had done it, but guessed that it was because he couldn’t bare to see things go disregarded. For the longest time he had known what it felt like to be overlooked and uncared for.

He placed each one back in it’s exact place, making sure to put them in the empty spots of the desk that weren’t covered it dust.

He left without even taking a second glance at the place. 

Hiccup soon found himself standing on a point the looked out over the vast ocean in front. The Dragon Master frowned sadly as he remembered the morning he had shot down his best friend, forever maiming him. It was a time that Hiccup didn’t often think about anymore.  For the first couple years, whenever Hiccup thought of Berk, the memory would come to him. It was the day that has essentially layed out the rest of his future. He had shot down a dragon, then befriended it. In Berk, Hiccup would have been killed on sight if they had been found. Or he would have been banished, and Toothless would have been killed. Both seemed just as bad a fate than the other.

Ever since then he hadn’t even thought it the day once. So now, even though it was painful to follow the exact path from the sky to the woods at ravens point, it didn’t hurt as much as it had all those years ago.

Hiccup noticed a light go on to his right and swiveled that way. Someone had turned on a lantern in their house and was peaking through the window at him. Luckily it was a cloudy night, so they probably couldn’t see his face. And even if they could, the Dragon Master had shot into the woods in a matter of seconds.

The second person awake at the time was one Astrid Hofferson. She had been awake all night, even though she had to be in the Arena in two hours. But she wasn’t tired. She sat where she normally did when she had nothing to do. On top of one of the lookout towers.  It was a quiet night. No rain or snow fell. The moon was blocked out by clouds, so the normally moon-lit village was completely dark.

From where Astrid sat, she could see all of Berk. Even the thin winding paths that went between each house. Even though she could see all of the place. She somehow missed the Dragon Master moving through the shadows. But that is irrelevant to this part of the story.

Most of the time, when she would come and sit up there, she wouldn’t really think about anything. She would just watch and observe, and occasionally a thought would come across her mind. But of this particular night--or morning, rather-- the events of the previous day ran over and over through her head. She was searching for something. Maybe, she thought, that there was some reason that the Riders had been so open to helping them.

Maybe they would use this to their advantage, train them the wrong way so when it came to dragons they’d be eaten alive.  _ No _ , Astrid thought,  _ they didn’t seem  _ that  _ stupid _ . Maybe they were bored, and needed something to do. The warrior immediately threw that idea away. How could a gang of dragon riders be so bored that they decided to help an enemy tribe.

Then that brought another question. Where they an enemy tribe? Astrid had never even heard of these riders, so how could they possibly be enemies with someone who they new nothing about. But then again, they had captured one of their people and dragons, so maybe that made them an enemy.

Finally, Astrid realized the one thing that could have possibly made them enemies. It should have be obvious, really. The dragons. The riders rode and seemed to love and appreciate the beasts. Berk killed and fought them. Hating dragons, which was so often a common ground between different tribes, was one thing that the riders and the Berkians did not share.

Astrid noticed that the Dragon Master, even though he never spoke, seemed to hole a particular hostility towards them. She could always feel his burning gave sweeping through them, like he was sizing them up, or maybe even preparing for an attack from all sides.

Astrid sighed and leaned away from the railing that had been supporting her shoulders. She flopped her arms out, feeling the bit of the frost covered wood, and looked up into the clouds. They looked quite particular. They weren’t clumped or fluffy, they seemed to take up the sky in one huge flat cloud that spread all the way to each horizon around Berk.

Astrid was started by a light flickering on to her left. She rolled up onto her feet and pried her axe out of the wood. It was a false alarm, of course. The light seemed to just be someone waking up and leaning outside to enjoy the fresh air. Or maybe to start early chores. It was common around Berk for young folk to be up early so they could get their work done quick and then head off to hang out with friends.

If Astrid hadn’t have been standing up, she might not have noticed the dark shape flying smoothly over the surface of the water. The dragon didn’t flap its wings, and the water below it didn’t even toss up. Soon, the shape was only a distant dot that just kept getting smaller and smaller.

⥈⥈⥈

Aasur woke up at almost the same time that Hiccup got back. He stretched and leaned back on his palms. Hiccup slid of Toothless and adjusted his prosthetic into the walking position. He sat down next to the almost out fire and fed it a few sticks to make it larger. 

Aasur slowly got up. He shook out his legs and sat on the log next to Hiccup.

“Did you go out for a flight?” he asked.

Hiccup nodded. “I went into the village.” When he received a worried look from Aasur, he waved it away. “No one saw me, don’t worry. Then I went for a flight.”

“Hmm,” Aasur pushed around the fires embers with a stick, hoping to make the flames get larger quicker. “For how long?”

“Um,” Hiccup looked up at the sky, which was just starting to brighten. He hunched his shoulders sheepishly. “Like a few hours.”

Aasur couldn’t say he was surprised. Hiccup often lost track of time when he was in the air. It was probably how they had ended up so close to Berk in the first place. They had started off just going on a simple mission to the markets for supplies, but had gotten side tracked in some air currents that are unbelievably fun to go through on a dragon, and the rest is history.

“You shouldn’t be out that late. Because now you’re probably tired, and we need you’re help with these vikings.”

Hiccup laughed. “Sorry mom, I’ll come back home early next time. You sound like Valka.”

Aasur threw his hands into the air in defense. “What! I know you’re the all great Triple H the Third, and you can stay up all hours, but it’s still not healthy. You are tired right?”

In response, Hiccup only shrugged. But Aasur, knowing him so well, could tell.

“Ok, you, get some rest, we still have like thirty minutes until we have to be in the village. Although I wish it was later,” Aasur rubbed his eyes. “Why are we meeting this early anyways?”

Laughing, Hiccup shoved Aasur’s shoulder. “You’re the one who suggested that we meet in the morning!”

Aasur pushed Hiccup on the chest with both hands, causing him to fall off the stump and land on his back in the dirt. He didn’t stop laughing though. “I didn’t know we were actually going through with their crazy idea! I thought we’d be back at the Sanctuary by now. But you’re ass got us into this, and it would be impolite to suddenly say ‘Hey! Actually, lets meet at noon’.”

This only made Hiccup to laugh more. He clutched at his chest and gasped for breath. There noise caused Gyda to wake up. She threw a boot at Hiccup.

“Shut up triple H, I’m tryna sleep.”

Still lying on his back, Hiccup covered his mouth and kicked Aasur’s shin.

⥈⥈⥈

Hiccup made his way through the village carefully. Aasur walked in front of him, and the others walked behind. They were all dressed in their common clothes. For hiccup, it was a leather getup with a bunch of straps across his front. Normally, he wouldn’t be wearing a helmet, but these weren’t exactly normal circumstances.

Everyone had once again strapped their various weapons to their belts or backs. All the riders had their own unique type of weapons. Most of them Hiccup had made. And then each person was also equipped with a gronckle iron sword.

As they passed, people gave them all weird or passive aggressive looks, and most of them eyed their weapons suspiciously, even though most of the Berkians carried a weapon of their own at all times, so if they were to attack, which they weren’t, it wasn’t like the Berkians would be caught off handed.

Eventually, after what seemed like a painfully long wait through the village, they came to stand in front of the arena. The young Berkians were already standing inside, talking amongst themselves. Tuffnut and Snotlout stood, their backs hunched and peaked over at the other ever so often. Astrid was standing with her hands on her hips next to Ruffnut, who was going on and on about who noes what. Fishlegs was standing nearby listening in on their conversation, which he tended to do often.

All the talk ceased as soon as the six riders walked into the arena. Six because the other team had gone back to the Sanctuary. They had hoped not to make thing less weird, and not think that the dragon riders had brought in reinforcements.

The Berkians all stood defensively as they filed in. Each person sizing each other up, except for the twins of course, who were admiring their tattoos ith great interest.

After a moment of awkward silence, Aasur stepped forward. He waved his hand in a sort of gauche way, like he was attempting to seem unthreatening. But as soon as he did this, all eyes were drawn to his Gronckle Iron sword and four needle point sharp knives that were all attached to his belt.

“Ok, um,” he tried to meet the eyes of the Berkians, but they are look in the opposite direction. “I guess we should get started. Uh, we were thinking that we would do personal training. Which means you all get your pick on who you want to train you. We might do some group stuff, but we think it would go quicker.”

The first ones to move were the twins. Unsurprisingly, they went to Gyda and Liut, probably thinking they were twins, which was a common misconception. Slowly, the others moved towards the other riders. Snotlout of course went to Aasur, who out of them, looked the most warrior like. Fishlegs nervously went to Freyja, and Astrid paired with Asvor.

⥈⥈⥈

Almost as soon as the man had said that they would be training separately, Astrid eyes had landed on the particular fierce looking red-headed woman who had badass tattoos on her face that Astrid liked the look of.

What startled Astrid when she approached the woman, was that she gave her a warm smile and stuck out her hand.

“The name’s Asvor Typho,” she said with a type of nordic accent that Astrid was sure she’d never heard before. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Astrid.”

Uncertainly, she took Asvors hand. “How do you know my name?” It was a genuine question. She had head it used in the forest when she’d been spying on them. It had slipped her memory up until this moment.

“We know a lot ‘bout you all,” she said this with ease, like it wasn’t weird. “I was thinking that we should just start off with a nice and easy run around the island?”

Astrid laughed. “I wouldn't call a run around the island ‘nice and easy’, maybe more like unpleasant and difficult.”

Asvor smiled. “I’ll be the judge of that. You should take off your armor, it’ll make things easier,” as the said this, she had already started to take off her own armor, which didn’t even really look like much compared to what she had been wearing two days ago. It was mostly leather with a square pattern, metal shoulder pads and leather straps crossing over her hips. It all slid off easily, leaving her in black leggings and a dark red short sleeve shirt.

What surprised Astrid the most was that she even put down her weapons. The large combat bow, the weirdly shiny sword, and even the small hatchet had had been strapped to her hip. 

Astrid slowly shook her head. “There is no chance in hel that I’m taking off any of my armor.”

Asvor shrugged and stretched her arms. “Suit yourself. If running around the island is really as hard as you say that you might want to reconsider. Plus, I’m leaving my weapons here, and there’s no way i’m gonna try and attack a  _ viking _ -” she spat out the word like it was a curse. “-without any armor… but really, it’s your choice. Lets go.”

The rider took off running, which gave Astrid no time to decide wether she actually wanted to take off any of the armor. So she followed. 

The run started off pretty easy. Mostly flats and down hills, but of course, when you go down, you must come back up. Eventually, they came to a sharp turn, that went straight up the side of the cliffs that towered over Berk. Asvor didn’t even slow down, she just kept huffing. Astrid however, did slow down. Her lips parted so she could intake more breath, and legs started to burn as the hill only got steeper and steeper.

After not long, the red headed woman disappeared around a corner, leaving astrid behind to sweat under the hot sun. luckly, a lot of the sun was blocked out by the trees to her left, but the steep slop combined with the humid air was running much more difficult that in normally was.

Soon, the top of the cliff came into view. That was a ledge that looked out over Berk, and a medium sized rick infront of it, that Asvor sat on. She didn’t even look the least bit tired. Finally, Astrid made it to the top and leaned over, placing her hands on her knees and hanging her head slightly.

“Are you going to take off your armor now?” Asvor questioned. Her voice suggested that she felt like laughing. Astrid’s teeth grinded and she sat down, leaning her back against the rock.

“Where would I put it?”

Asvor smiled and whistled through her fingers. A moment later, a large yellow, orange, and purple dragon flew up. Astrid yelped and reached for her axe. When she remembered that she had left it back down on Berk, she grabbed a stick that was near by and pointed it at the dragon.

Asvor was giving her a funny look. Astrid quickly realized that this particular dragon was wearing a saddle, and then recognised it as the one she had tried to attack a few days before. It was Asvors dragon.

Hesitantly, Astrid placed the stick at her side and stood up. The creature watched her carefully, probably trying to decide whether she could be trusted or not. It had every reason not to like her. She had charged it with an axe. But for some reason, the dragon heald no hostility. It didn’t bare its teeth and its claws hung harmlessly in front of it.

When it took a step forward, and Astrid took a step back, it tilted its head in confusion. Asvor stepped forward and rubbed its nose.

“It’s ok Alba, she doesn’t really like dragons,” she turned to face Astrid, while also keeping both her hands on her dragon. “He’ll take your armor down for you.”

Tentatively, while still keeping an eye on the dragon and it’s rider, Astrid took off her shoulder pads and the thick fur hood, and lastly the spike skirt, leaving her in a crimson shirt and black leggings. She crossed her arms over her chest as the dragon flew away.

Asvor sat down at the edge of the cliff, her legs hanging over the side. She patted next to her.

“Come sit next to me, I want to talk to you about a few things. Then we’ll get going again.” Astrid sat down, knowing that there wasn’t really arguing with her. Plus, it gave her time to rest. Asvor brought a leg up and turned to face her. “I know you chose me because of my looks. But I’m not… violent and angry, which is kind of the vibe I give off with all the tattoos and stuff.”

Astrid looked down. “I thought that out of all you, that you would be most suitable for me. I mean, the big guy with the black hair maybe, but Snotlout had already claimed him.”

“Aasur? Yeah, he would be good a teaching you fighting. But I’m not going to do that.”

Frowning, Astrid leaned back and looked at her. “What? But isn’t that what you’re here for?”

Asvor laughed. “No, we’re here to help you train dragons. You already know how to fight. You also have-” Asvor grunted as she stood up. “A lot of anger issues. I’m going to help you with them.”

Astrid launched to her feet. “I don’t have anger issues! That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You know nothing about me so you can’t actually make that assumption.”

Asvor looked pointedly and Astrid’s hand, which was balled into a fist as she waved it around in the air. She unclenched it and cracked her knuckles. Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.

“Ok. Maybe I do. How’d you know?”

“Well,first of all, it’s pretty easy by looking at you. Second, you chose me, a read-headed covered it tattoos and spikes. And third, we know everything about you.”

“How?”

“Well, we did our research. Some of your enemies are out allies. Two of the big ones being the Outcasts and the Berserkers.”

“The Outcasts? Really?”

“Yup, Let’s go.”

As it would be, the run down was much easier. They headed down the cliff, and into the woods that were to the right of Berk if you were looking right at it. They weren’t even following any sort of a trail. Asvor hopped over fallen logs and over small streams with ease. They made it to the water edge and she lead them onto the beach where they ran for a while.

Astrid had never really explored the woord in detail. When she came in here, it was mostly in the areas closest the village. So for most of the run, she had no ide where they were, but eventually, as they came close to the village, Astrid started to recognise some small landmarks and things that suggested someone had been there. Such as the mass amount of gash marks on certain trees, that had been made by Astrid’s axe.

And even thought she had just gotten here, and Astrid had no reason to believe that Asvor knew where she was going, they made it back to the village with no question of where they had been the whole time.

The village was unusually quiet. No one seemed to be around. That is until the two of them heard a large cheer coming from the arena. They ran that way, and stopped on the cliff that lead down. They came to find that all of Berk was down there, and from what they could see, two people were in the arena.

They went down and elbowed their way through the ground to the edge of the cage that covered the arena. Standing in the middle, circling each other, was Aasur and Snotlout. They heald no weapons. Snotlout was stiff and his face full of anger. Aasur on the other hand, had relaxed shoulders, bent knees, and a playfully mocking look.

The brother and sister riders stood off to the side, both grinning and cheering their friend on. Ruff and Tuff were slumped up against the wall, looking angry. Their arms were crossed and their legs were sprawled out on the ground.

Astrid spotted Fishlegs standing with the small brunette rider. While Fishlegs look anxious, the woman laughed as Aasur ran forward and grabbed Snotlout’s arm. With one movement, he flung the Berkian over his head and onto his back. 

Snotlout’s mouth was open, his eyes wide with shock.

Half the ground erupted in cheers again, while the other half grumbled and handed various other vikings coins, probably because they lost a bet. Even Astrid smiled slightly. It was nice to see Snotlout loose a fight with someone other than herself.

Looking around, Astrid found the Dragon Master sitting across the arena at the back of the crowd. His arms were crossed, and he was leaning up against the stone wall that was there. His dragon was no where to be seen. As she looked around, Astrid realized that none of the dragons were actually there.

It didn’t really surprise her, but it was a bit disappointing. What did surprise her, was that  _ Stoick _ , was sitting in his chair, laughing as the fights went on, and random vikings volunteered to fight the rider.

Someone moved into the arena and Astrid realized with a shock that it was Asvor. Astrid hadn’t even noticed her leave.

Without the watching eyes of the rider, Astrid moved towards Stoick, who at first didn’t even see her approaching. When he did, he glanced at her once, then back at the fight, then back at her.

“Astrid! Where ya been lass? You should volunteer to fight this man, I think you’d fair well against ‘im.”

Astrid shook her head. “Can I speak to you?”

He let out a boisterous laugh and Aasur took down yet another viking. “Of course!”

“Um well, I was wondering. About your plan. To, you know, use the dragons we train against them. The riders seem to be already suspicious about us doing that. Are we still going to try it?”

Stoick’s gaze suddenly hardened and he met her eyes. “Yes. We will still try. Our plan is going to have to change a bit, but I don’t see a reason why we would have to change it too much just because a bunch of kids think they know what we’re trying to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene with Hiccup and Aasur made me smile a lot while writing it. :,)


	9. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for 96 kudos!!

Gobber knocked on Stoick’s door with a loud bang. He had just gotten back from the arena, the endless fights had finally stopped. A moment later, the door swung open and Stoick stoob, blocking out any view of the house with his large body. Without saying anything, Gobber pushing into the room and placed what he had come to show the man on the table.

Stoick frowned and looked at the tools. “What’s this?”

“Um, well, you see,” Gobber, paused, unsure of what he was really coming to show him. Was it the new leather rappings? Or just the tools. “These are… Hiccup’s old tools.”

Immediately, Stoick reached forward taking one of the tools in his large hands. The smallest of the tools was about the length of the his pointer finger, so it was ridiculous to see him hold them.

“Why’d you bring them here?”

“Here’s where it gets interesting,” Gobber sat down and served himself some of the soup that was in the cauldron above the fire. “They’ve recently been re-wrapped. Meaning, someone has taken off the old leather on the handles, and put on new leather.”

Stoick glared at gobber as he gulped down a bowl of the soup. “I see that. Was it you?”

“No, actually. I went into the back to look for something’ I thought I might have left back there, and I saw them. None of the dust around them had been moved, but the tools had clearly been re-wrapped. And recently, too.”

Stoick’s eyes brightened. “Do you think-”

“The boys dead, Stoick,” Gobber said without any kind of mercy. “Now, I know you’ve been holding out hope. And I really wish I could also have that hope, but frankly, he didn’t stand a chance against any dragon, much less a Night Fury.”

Stoick flinched and he placed the tool carefully back on the table. “Well I’m sorry you’ve lost your hope, Gobber.” The blacksmith hummed in response and finished up is bowl. “I’d like you to leave now.”

This caused him to look up at his friend. “Excuse me.”

“You came into my home, giving my something that is bound to think that my son in alive, and then you tell me in a rather harsh way that he is dead and that I should give up on him. I’d like you to leave.”

Slowly, Gobber stood up, and left Stoick to stare at the weapons with growing sadness.

⥈⥈⥈

The riders all grouped back in the cove. Hiccup had been the first one back. He had left the fights early, as it wasn’t really something he was too interested in. Asvor and Freyja had been next, then Liut, and finally, Gyda and Aasur. They all crowded round the fire, each holding a fish over it.

Every so often, Aasur would roll his shoulders back, probably try to work out sore muscles from fighting basically the whole village. Hiccup, just to mess with him, punched his shoulder. Normally, Aasur would have retaliated with a shove of his own, but he was tired, so he sent a half hearted glare instead.

“How was everyone’s day?” Hiccup asked.

Gyda scoffed. “Ruffnut is a piece of work. She seems enthusiastic enough to be a dragon rider, and sees not like super viking, meaning shes not like, set on killing, but all she was really interested in were my tattoos and my hatchet.”

“Pretty much the same with Tuffnut,” Liut agreed. “Except he wouldn’t stop talking. And when he wasn’t talking, he would be frowning and slumped over. And, as Aasur knows, when the fights started, he just kept going at it over and over, even though he kept loosing.”

Hiccup laughed. “Sounds about right. Aasur? How were your fights? I wasn’t really paying attention most of the time. How did they even start?”

Aasur finished chewing a bite of fish. “Well, it started off by Snotlout wanting a rematch from the fight we had when we were saving Freyja and Elsie, and I wasn’t going to let go of a chance to legally beat up the guy who bullied my best friend for fifteen years,” he leaned over and squeezed Hiccups shoulder. “Then, some other vikings saw, and the crowd just got bigger and bigger. Snotlout kept coming back every few fights. He never won, of course. No one did, actually, but it was nice to fight someone other than people at the Sanctuary.”

Hiccup poked at his fish to check if it was fully cooked through. “I feel sorry for you. Snotlout’s never going to give up until he beats you.”

After a moment of thought, and a few large bites of food, Aasur clears his throat. “We could make a competition cou of it. I mean, none of them have the fighting kills to be a dragon rider, so maybe we could dedicate a few days to training them on fighting.”

Asvor leaned forward. “I don’t think thats a good idea. Astrid needs more time to lean how to be a rider, not a fighter.”

Gyda and Liut had mixed opinions. Liut thought that if they had a fighting competition, Tuffnut would probably go crazy and start attacking everyone so he could win. And Gyda felt that if they put Ruffnut up for the test, she might actually start listening a little bit.

In the end, everyone turned to Hiccup. After all, he was the one who new most about all of the Berkians. He would know if they should train in fighting for a little bit. Aasur smiled a bit when Toothless crooned and Hiccup met the dragons eyes. It was almost as if they were communicating.

Their relationship was one that Aasur didn;t think he would ever be able to understand. Sure, he had known Wildae most of his life, but hadn’t really ever bonded with him on a different level until two years ago, when he’d lost his father, and Wildae had lost his rider.

After a few moments, Hiccup looked back at the group. “I think it might be interesting. Maybe not the whole day, you guys can still do your personal training, but for a majority of a couple days we could train them to fight.”

Aasur threw his fists up into the air. “Yes! This is going to be great! We’ll make it a competition between them, and along the way we can each give pointers and such,” he stood up and clasped his hands together. “Ok, then we should get some rest. We need to be rested for tomorrow. And Hiccup? That means no early morning flights that last two hours.”

⥈⥈⥈

Astrid was confused and also excited when the riders came into the village all dressed in full armor. Not the dragon scale looking arm they’d been wearing when they came to get their friend and the dragon, but rather more simple but also thick and sturdy. Asvor was the only one were what she had been wearing the day before. 

They walked into the arena and stood in a line. It was actually kind of intimidating looking at them, just standing there like an unmovable brick wall. They were fully decked out. Each rider heald at least two weapons, some heald an extra. It was strange, they all had an identical sword, and then each had a type of weapon that Astrid had never seen used to much around here. Such as the long spear that was strapped the Freyja--Astrid had learned their names from the others-- or the small double hatchets, one on each of gydas hips.

Aasur stepped forward, twirling a small knife between in fingers. “We’re going to be doing a little competition,” the Berkias perked up at this. A competition was always wanted. “We want to get to know what all of your are like,  _ so _ , its going to be a fighting competition. Because as much as we love to say so,” he looked pointedly as Asvor, who scowled. “Being a dragon rider take more than just knowing how to ride a dragon. We’ll start in ten minutes, which gives you a perfect amount of time to consult with your trainer.”

Asvor’s calm demeanor from the day before had disappeared, and had been replaced with a rather annoyed look of discontent. Astrid used this to her advantage.

“You know, for someone who hates fighting so much, you really didn’t hesitate to knock me out when we first met.” She teased. “And you call us savage.”

The rider clearly wasn’t in a joking mood, because she turned to Astrid with a ferocious glare. “I watched my entire family and tribe slaughtered right in front of my eyes. You attacked my dragon; I was protecting the family i’ve been given. That’s a lot different that viciously killing everything I don't understand.”

Astrid clamped her mouth shut and sent an apologetic look, which Asvor waved away.

“Hole up your axe.” Astrid did so and Asvor cringed. “Your form could be better.” She pushed her right hand down, more towards her hip, and then pushed her left hand lower down on the handle and closer to her body. “We get energy from your body, so you want your arms to be close to it when you aren’t attacking. Ok, now come at me.”

Asvor took a couple steps back and opened her arms at her sides. Astrid bent her knees and lunged. But Asvor side stepped right as she got to her and sharply jabbed at her side. Astrid stumbled and rubbed at her side.

“You’re attacking directly. You need to come from above or below.”

She grabbed the axe out of Astrid's hands and demonstrated, just as Aasur whistles between his fingers, calling for the start of the competition.

⥈⥈⥈

Hiccup decided to try not to get involved too much during the competition. So, he stood in the doorway. At some point, as he watched each of the Berkians talking to their respective trainer, Toothless crawled in and layed down. Hiccup sat and leaned up against him as the fights started. 

Since Fishlegs had said he didn’t want to compete, the first fight, which was probably a bad decision, was between Ruffnut and Tuffnut. It ended pretty quickly, with them just trying to hit each other as hard as they could. And in the end, there wasn’t even an winner, just too very tired twins, sprawled out on the floor. And since Ruffnut was less tired than Tuffnut, Aasur said that she would move on.

When it was no longer a sibling rivalry, and an actual fight between Snotlout and Ruffnut, that is where it became interesting. But even so, this fight, though longer than the first, didn’t last too long either. Snotlout, being as vicious as he is, used Ruffnuts fatigue against her.

Then, finally, Astrid stepped up to fight Snotlout. It was the fight that Hiccup had been waiting for. He sat up a little bit, bringing his still fully intact leg up to his chest and resting his elbow on his knee.

As expected, the fight started out almost immediately. Snotlout ran towards Astrid, his ax heald high in the air. Astrid dodged nimbly and knocked Snotlout in the side with her shield, causing him to stumble. He gained his footing back quickly, and this time, waiting, instead of instantly charging her.

Astrid went forwards, quickly stepped to one side, causing snotlout to swing his axe in that direction, but she stepped back to the other side a swiftly spect Snotlout's feet from underneath him, the she kicked his axe away and swung her age down, burying it into the shield still attached to Snotlout’s arm.

He yelped and pulled his arm out of the shield just in time.

Astrid began to laugh. She turned towards the riders, who were all silently watching her. “That was too easy. We want to fight you guys!”

Her eyes swept over each rider, landed on Hiccup and then moved slightly to the side. Her eyes seemed to widen in surprise when she noticed the black as night dragon lounging there. Though she recovered quickly, Hiccup saw it. He smiled to himself, noting that yes, it is possible to surprise Astrid Hofferson.

The riders had turned together. Hiccup got up and walked over to them, Toothless following cautiously behind. The Berkians were all watching the dragon with even more wary expressions.

The dragon sat in a rather humanly way when they got to the others.

“What do you think?” Aasur asked Hiccup, who shrugged.

“I don’t think its too bad of an idea.”

Aasur frowned. “Hic- Triple H, I beat Tuffnut five times in a row yesterday. They’re not exactly going to be fair fights.”

Hiccup shrugged again and looked over at the ground of Berkians, who were idly watching them with bored expression. “Then come up with something to motivate them. If we don’t give them what they want, they’ll probably never listen to you. I mean, they’ll probably never listen anyways, but this might help.”

Aasur thought for a moment, then his eyes brightened. He looked back into the circle. “I have an idea. So we’re all okay fighting in this thing?” After everyone nodded, Aasur gave Hiccup a mischievous look and turned fully towards the Berkians. “Ok! We’re all going to be fighting you guys!  _ And _ , whoever does the best out of you, gets to fight the Dragon Master!”

The Berkians cheered in excitement, but Hiccups eyes widened in horror behind his mask. He pulled Aasur away from the crowd. “What are you doing? I don’t want to fight one of them.”

Aasur laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll win.”

Sputtering, Hiccup threw his arms out to the side. “But why me? You guys are the fighters, I’m the speaker. You’re all way better fighters than I am.”

“I know, but you’re better than them,” he pointed over his shoulder.

Groaning, Hiccup slumped against the snot wall. “But  _ why _ me?”

“Well look at you,” Aasur gestured to Hiccup. “The most intimidating thing about your physical form is that you wear a mask. And then the most intimidating think about you is that you ride a Night Fury. Like you said, they don’t listen. So we cant very well tell them that you’re a bad bitch. We need another way of showing them who they’re dealing with.”

“There are other options!” Hiccup yelled with an exasperated tone.

“Look,” Aasur took hold of Hiccups shoulders. “It’s gonna give them something to work hard for, like you said might help. We know you’re gonna win, and I’m frankly excited to see you whip their ass. But for now, this is giving them motivation.”

They walked out, Aasur’s arm wrapped around Hiccup, who’s shoulders were up by his ears as he was squeezed. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he mumbled.

“You pick who we go against. You know best what would be most fair.”

Hiccup shrugged. “Just do partners. You and Snotlout, Astrid and Asvor, Ruffnut - Gyda, Tuffnut - Liut. And if Fishlegs wants to fight, then him against Freyja.”

Aasur hummed and put his hands on his hips, looking out at the Berkians and Riders. They stood in two separate packs, with an uncomfortable amount of space between them. 

“Fishlegs you gonna fight?” The large boy got startled by being directly asked a question. He jumped and clasped his hands in front of him and timidly shook his head. “Ok. Freyja? You wanna fight Snotlout?”

Snotlout snorted. Freyja was rather small. She was just over five feet, and thin with messy straight black hair with a couple loose braids tucked behind her ear. He resting face looked like she was nervous. Her eye brows pulled together and her lips poised in a slight frown. So Snotlout probably thought that she was scared to fight him. 

After a moment, and a hard glare sent in Snotlout’s direction, her lips curled into a smile. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Great! There will be two different fights going on at once, Dragon Master and I will be the judges. Snotlout, Freyja, Tuffnut and Luit, over here,” he pointed to the left. “All others, over there.”

“Wait, wait,” Astrid said, holding up a hand. “You guys are just gonna favore your own.”

Aasur laughed. “I think it’s gonna be pretty obvious who is a winner. We’ll just be there to…  _ mediate _ . So nothing goes horribly wrong.”

Astrid cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck as she walked over to where he fights would happen.

⥈⥈⥈

Normally, fighting competitions were horribly boring for Astrid. She was better fighter than most of the vikings on Berk, the only exceptions being Stoick and a few of the Berkians of his class.

But  _ this  _ competition brought great excitement to her. She was quite positive that she’d be able to win, and then get to fight the Dragon Master, who she’d never seen fight once. The other riders always did the fighting, and he seemed to just ride around on that devil of his, giving out orders and looking  _ mysterious _ . It made Astrid mad.

Astrid, knowing that Asvor could be quite violent when she needed to be, thought that she should just stay on the defensive until a correct moment came to her. Then she remembered that Asvor hated fighting, and more importantly, hated violence, so she would probably go on the defensive.

Just as the fight was about to begin, Astrid couldn’t help notice the Dragon Master and his Night Fury looming near-by. He had his hands behind his back. His belt had a sword, along with a small hand heald knife attached to it. He seemed to be the only one out of them who didn’t look like he carried any sort of different weapon. All he had was a knife and a sword.

Astrid and Asvor started to circle each other. In an attempt to intimidate her, Astrid twirled the axe around her wrist. But Asvor, who hadn’t yet drawn a weapon, only smiled and shuffled one of her feet as if she were a bull. But she didn’t move, as a bull would’ve after doing that. So, Astrid, decided that Asvor was going to stay on the defensive, ran forward. 

Taking Asvors own advice, she heald the axe close to her body just until she attacked. Then the rose her arms and prepared to take the axe down. But she felt a sharp pain go through her side as Asvor jabbed there.

Astrid double over and the rider grabbed her axe, ripping it out of her hands and throwing it to the side, where it skidded to a stop at the dragon masters feet. Astrdi went for it, but he picked it up and leaned it against the wall. He shook his head.

Clenching her hands in frustration, Astrid wheeled back towards Asvor, who was watching her calmly. She was rolling on the balls of her feet, her arms hanging at her sides, threatening to reach for one of the many weapons she heald and use them against the weaponless viking.

But, instead of taking out one of the weapons, she simple rounded to Astrid side.

“Hand to hand?” she asked casually.

In response, Astrid grunted and charged her. She threw a punch intended to contact with her throat, but the rider, who was much more agile, easily dodged. She grabbed onto Astrid extended arm and used the vikings momentum to swing her around and onto the floor.

She quickly rolled back onto her feet and faced the red haired girl again. This time, she didn’t wait for the attack. Quicker than Astrid had ever seen anyone move, Asvor had stepped onto Astrid bents knee and sent her other foot upwards, connecting with the vikings jaw, and flipped back as the went sailing to the ground.

Astrid was so shocked that she didn’t move for a solid couple of seconds. Then Asvors grinning face came over her and extended a hand. Astrid gladly accepted, it wasn’t often that she met someone who was better than her in a fight.

“You’ll have to teach me that move,” she said lightly.

The rider laughed. “I’ll each you that move after you can deal with a dragon without killing it.”

“Sounds good. Who do I fight next?”

The other fight on their side started. Astrid looked over at the other fights and her eyes widened in delight as she watched the small brown haired girl, Freyja, flip Snotlout over her head and onto his back. His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head in shock.

The rest of the day went on rather slowly. Astrid fought all the riders, she never won, but as the day went forward, she could feel herself getting better. She fights lasted longer and no longer did the riders surprise her with anything. Of course, most of the moves were new, but Astrid had learned early on that she couldn’t be surprised by them.

They were quick, smart, and not to be judged before the fight started. Especially the blond girl with the black line coming from the center on her lips and down the middle of her chin. She was probably the most violent and reckless out of them, even though she seemed to be the youngest.

A crowd of Berkians slowly started to form. Eventually, Stoick even arrived. Astrid couldn’t help notice that the riders seemed to stiffen into boards when he shoed up. The Dragon Master kept back into the shadows where he and the Night Fury blended in perfectly with the darkness.

Once all the Berkians had fought all the riders, they all grouped together in a line. The Dragon Master came out of her solitude, which caused a huge up roar at the sight of the nightmare dragon out in broad daylight. It gave a deathly growled that rumbled throughout the ground, silencing the people. It even sent a shiver down Astrid spine. The Dragon Master simple placed a hand on its head, causing it to stop and coo at its rider.

He went over to the other riders and they discussed who would be the winner.

Without any sort of surprise, it was between Snotlout and Astrid. But quickly, they decided that Astrid was the winner. She grinned as the Dragon Master moped into the center of the field.

Aasur patted his back and turned away from Astrid, her whispered something, which caused the Master and elbow him in the ribs. Aasur went to the side of the arena laughing.

Astrid hadn’t noticed before, but he actually  _ wasn’t  _ wearing any sort of armor. Had had shoulder pads, but that was it. The rest of him was covered in leather with straps crossing over his chest. His forearms had all sorts of things on it, from a little compass to a pencil. 

He quickly took off the sword and knife from his belt, but instead of raising them, he handed them to Asvor and took out a cylinder from his thigh that Astrid had thought was just a pocket or something. He flicked it to the side, and to Astrids surprise, it extended into a sword, and then, even more surprising, caught on fire.

Her eyes widened and she toko a surprised step back, the ground leaned forward in interest.  _ This  _ was new. She realized with a start that he had been wearing it at the meeting they’d had.  _ They were armed.  _ This only made Astrid angrier. She specifically remember the note saying for them not to be armed.

Astrid legs out an angry yell and charges him. The fire sword and axe meet and Astrid swings her legs up but the Dragon Master easily ducks. He takes a step back but them comes up from above. The shield maiden goes down to one knee and holds the sword there with the handel of her axe.

From the corner of her eyes, she notices the blak dragon let out a humanly laugh and throws the the Master away. And comes back at him again. This time, she was above, and him below. But of course, he using the curled hoot of the axe and slid his sword through it, throwing her away with a sharp shove.

When she stood and faced him, he swings his arms backwards and kicks Astrid directly in the chest, once again sending her falling back.

Angering her more, Astrid stood and jumped high and with a loud shout, came down towards him, but he dodged and her axe dug helplessly into the rock. Only for a moment though, because the next second, she swung it once again at him, but of course he dodged.

She brought up a knee, which he deflected and sent a fist at her face, which she also sent away quickly.

He fell to one knee, and Astrid, thinking she had won, went around to make the final blow to win. But, she could have sword she heard him laugh as he got to all fours, even with the fire sword in one hand and swiftly swung a leg and knocked Astrid off her feet. Her axe fell away, which effectively ended the fight, giving him the win.

Astrid yelled and fell onto her back, pressing her clenched fists to her forehead in an attempt to calm her temper. It did nothing of course.

⥈⥈⥈

“ _ See _ ,” Aasur said as Hiccup reattached his sword and knife to his belt and changed the Monstrous Nightmare gel canaster to Inferno. “Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Now they wont even look at you as if you’re weak.”

Promptly, Aasur wrapped an arm around Hiccups neck and dragged him playfully out of the arena, the rest of the riders following close behind. They made their way quietly through the village and into the woods in the direction of the Cove.

When Hiccup had been using the same path over and over for weeks on end eight years ago, he had wore quite a little path, but since, it had been over grown once more. There were still reminisce that it was once there, but if you didn’t know the place, it would be as if there wasn’t even anything there in the first place.

It was quite nostalgic for Hiccup to walk through these woods. Especially when they came across the huge splintered fallen down tree that had grown moss and hat rotten. And when they walked down the deep trench that had been dug by a falling, injured Night Fury.

There was even a piece of rope that had been grown into the ground. It was slimy and green now, but it was evident that it had once been inside one of Hiccups first working inventions: the bola launcher. The launcher that had changed his life. Or course, not in the way that he thought it would at the time, but changed it no less. 

They made it to the Cove and ducked under the old worn down shield that had plants growing out from between its wood and the rocks.

Only when they were safely in the cover of the Cove, did Hiccup take off the helmet. Hiccup carefully took off the leather top, leaving him in a black tunic. Though he didn’t want anyone to know, Astrid had gotten a few painful hits in. The biggest on the left side of his ribcage, and it was already starting the bruise.

Rolling up his shirt slightly, Hiccup touched the tender stop and flinched.

To make matters worse, Aasur gasped and rushed to his side. After a moment, he burst out laughing and feel onto his back.

“She got a hit on you Triple H! She  _ actually  _ got a hit on you.”

Hiccup glared and put she shirt back down. “I’m not exactly the best fighter so it shouldn’t really surprise.”

Aasur shoved his shoulder, making Hiccup groan in pain. “You didn’t act like you’d bee hit. And during the fight it didn’t even look like she touched you.”

“Well, she did,” Hiccup pulled off his shirt and got out the medical kit. For a moment, he looked at his left arm, which was covered in the tattoo. It looked quite spectacular in the late evening sun. He rubbed some bruise ointment on and headed to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> So about this last like paragraph. I know that earlier I said that only Aasur knew about Hiccups' arm tattoos, but I changed my mind :b  
> So yeah :)
> 
> -Charlie


	10. Chapter 8

The village in the morning was quite. The only people that were awake at the time were the farmers. But they all had plots around at the back so they were really ever in the village center. Which is where Gobber was now, as he made his way up to the top of the village where his friend, the chief, lived.

When he got there, Gobber didn’t knock immediately. The last time they had spoken they hadn’t exactly said very nice words. And Stoick wasn’t really one to forgive very easily.

The knock was slow and painful. It was a knock from a person who was dreading the answer.

Before leaving to Forge, he had thought that he should probably being some sort of gift, but then thought against it, for Stoick had never really been the flattery kind of guy. He much rather preferred someone come out and say that they were wrong. So, much to Gobbers displeasure, he had come bearing no gifts, and with a sorry smile that asked for forgiveness.

The door opened sluggishly. And there was Stoick, dressed in all his chieftain glory. He have Gobber had nasty glare, and the old smithy hunched his shoulders sheepishly. But alas, Stoick let his old friend into the house reluctantly.

“Um, Stoick,” Gobber decided that it might be better if he stood for this bit. Maybe he’d be able to get out quickly that way. “I wanted to apologize… for the other morning. I didn’t mean to give you false hope, and then squish it like a bug.” Stoick only watched him, his large hands planted like roots on his hips. “You know I miss Hiccup just as much as you do. But it’s become… difficult. It’s been  _ eight years  _ Stoick.”

For the first time, Stoick looked down. His eyes lowered, and Gobber looked at the top of his polished silver helmet. “I know that Gobber. But he’s my son, and I won’t give up on him like I did last time.”

⥈⥈⥈

Training wouldn’t start until noon that day. So Hiccup, like he did most of the time when he wasn’t busy, sat in the shade, his knees propping up his notebook, and a charcoal pencil in hand. He was drawing the strange sight in front of him. Although, as strange sights go for the riders, this one wasn’t all too odd.

The dragons that Hiccup had set free only three days before were all still huddled together, squawking a hissing to each other quietly.  _ Why won’t they leave? _ Hiccup asked himself. They set dragons free all the time, and normally they would just fly away, back towards the Sanctuary, or their own nest. But these ones had barley even left the little cove.

Hiccup glanced down at his drawing. So far, he had gotten in the Nadder, the Gronckly, and the Zippleback. He was holding off drawing the Nightmare. He always hated all the shading that required when drawing them.

The rest of the dragon riders were all in various parts of the cove. Aasur was sprawling out in the sun, his hands behind his head and a makeshift hat covering his face. Hiccup was almost certain that he was asleep. Gyda was working on repairing her shoulder pad, which had been ripped off in a fight with Ruffnut. 

Freyja was in the water with Elsie. It was where she normally was if there was any sort of water anywhere. At the moment, she floated on her back, her arms and legs spread wide, her eyes staring blankly up into the sky. There was a smile on her face. A little yellow Terrible Terror sleeping soundly on her stomach. Liut was bringing around food to the various Dragons. He had gone out to the water side a bit earlier and had caught fresh fish, which the dragons preferred more than the ones in the lake.

Wildae, Alba, and Tay/Gee were out flying. It was unusual for them to not fly much, and they certainly hadn’t been flying too often recently. Toothless, who couldn’t fly without Hiccups help, was hanging upside down by his tail like a huge bat. He was asleep.

Sighing, Hiccup closed the notebook gently and pulled the Book of Dragons into hid lap. For a moment, he just stared at it, thinking to himself that it might have just been better if they’d left the books with the Berkians. Then they wouldn’t be in this whole mess in the first place. Bu then, they would have been putting everyone back at the sanctuary in danger. It was troubling.

I mean, what harm could they have done. Vikings weren’t the smartest kind of people. They needed things to be written out for them, but what Hiccup had done is had had drawn four landmarks that around around the Sanctuary, and then he’d drawn a crystal in the middle, because the Sanctuary kind of looked like a giant crystal.

All it took to figure out where to go was a smart brain, which Berk didn’t have many of.

After a moment, Hiccup placed the book down. There wasn’t really much he could do with it without any dragons to study. He picked the notebook back up and flipped to the page with the drawing on it, which looked sad without the Nightmare.

Aasur sat up and stretched. He noticed Hiccups blank stare and rolled up onto his feet. He slumped down next to Hiccup and took to notebook out of his hands. Hiccup barley seemed to notice, his hands just feel into his lap, and he continued to stare over at the group of dragons.

“You aren’t finished your drawing,” Aasur said.

Hiccup leaned his head against the rock and rolled it towards Aasur. “I noticed.”

Aasur looked from the drawing the the dragons, back, and then at Hiccup. “What are we going to do with them?”

Hiccup was silent, contemplating. He had an idea, but wasn’t sure that the rest of the team would be onboard. And that was necessary. For most of the recent decisions, Hiccup had been able to convince them otherwise, but this one had potential to actually make an open minded person like Asvor to frown at.

“I have an idea,” he said, taking a gamble. “But I don’t know if you’re gonna like it.”

Aasur only took a moment to realize what Hiccup meant. He slammed the book closed and shook his head vigorously. “No!  _ Hiccup _ . Are you crazy?”

“Would it be the first time?” Hiccup stood up, and Aasur followed immediately.

Aasur shrugged and scrambled after Hiccup as he climbed out of the upper excit of the Cove. Hiccup, being taller--and probably still remembering exactly where to step--scaled up quickly, but Aasur was a couple paces behind him. When he came around a rock, he found Hiccup crouched down in front of two small Terrible Terrors, one green, and one cyan colored.

“Hiccup, the Berkians were horrible to those dragons. We cannot  _ give  _ them to them.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?” the little Terrors had both crawled into Hiccups arms and feel asleep. Aasur stared at them with wonder.  _ How does he do it?  _ “Send a Terror Message and ask Valka to send some dragons? They’re forgiving creatures, Aasur.”

“Hiccup, these dragons were hurt by them.”

“Yes, they were. You know the first time I met Toothless is after I shot him out of the sky, permanently maiming him. And he forgave me.”

“Toothless was never heald in captivity.” Hiccup raised an eyebrow. Aasur knew the story, so, technically, Toothless  _ had  _ been stuck in the cove for months because of Hiccup. Aasur waved a hand up in the air, frustrated. “You know what I mean. On  _ purpose _ .”

“Fine,” Hiccup gently picked up the sleeping Terrors and placed them on a mound of soft moss. “Talk to the others. Tell them about my crazy plan and gossip about how stupid I am. I’m going to go take a flight with Toothless.”

⥈⥈⥈

Astrid had found out, in a rather cross way, that when the Dragon Master had disarmed her, a part of her axe had shattered. So, the next morning after having the whole night to cool down, she went to the Forge. Gobber was already there, working on a few different weapons. But when Astrid slammed her axe down on the table, he looked up and smiled.

“What can I do for you?” His eyes spotted the axe. “Oh. Sheesh. What happened to it?”

“I don’t what to talk about it,” Astrid hopped up onto the counter as Gobber brought the axe towards him.

Blacksmithing had never really interested Astrid. It just didn’t seemed like something that couple be fun. Like, sure, you get to make sharp things and use fire, but it didn’t seem fun. Hiccup had always seemed to like it. He’d never complained, even thought he had been forced into so he might gain some muscle.

Astrid watched as Gobber dripped a boiling hot substance onto the area that had been shattered, and then hammer it down. He placed it into the furnace for a couple seconds before pulling it out, hammering in again, and then dumping it into a bucket of water.

A distant whoop came from above. Astrid tore her eyes away from the axe just in time to see a dark shape disappear into the clouds. It then came back out, but this time, separated into two things. A smaller one, in the shape of a human, and a larger one in the shape of a dragon.

Astrid wasn’t the only one who had noticed them. There were various Vikings looking up into the sky, shielding their eyes from the rare sight of sun. Even Gobber had stopped working and was looking at the Rider, who was descending quicker and quicker towards the water.

“He’s not stopping,” said Gobber, who had leaned over the counted to get a better look. But almost as soon as he had said this, the mans arms extended and he jolted to a stop, the air catching under a sort of gliders. Gobber hummed appreciatively. “Oh good, we’ve got ourselves an adrenaline junky... Your axe is done, lad.”

Without taking her eyes of the figure, who was now gliding only meters above the water, Astrid picked up the axe, an old spyglass, and took off at a run towards the cliffs. Maybe he wasn’t wearing a helmet. His hidden identity had started to become more and more frustrating to Astrid.

Everyone always seemed so ok with it. Why was it that no one else thought he was even a little bit sketchy. Fishlegs from the beginning, had been talking non stop about the Night Fury. He had already made a hundred different dragon cards for it, and constantly talking about its size, shape, and its strange sort of hot plasma fire.

Snotlout, who Astrid had counted on him thinking the guy was just showy, hadn’t stopped talking about the fight between him and Astrid. He is convinced that the two of them are mean to be friends, and that hes finally found someone with his level of coolness. Which is completely ridiculous.

The twins were only interested in two things. One, the Dragon Masters fire sword, thinking about how much destruction it might be able to cause. And two, getting dragons, which they probably also day-dreamed about how much destruction could cause.

Astrid got to the cliff and slammed her newly fixed axe into the dirt. She got down onto one knee and flipped open the spyglass. Squinting her eyes and adjusting the lends slightly, she focused in on the rider. He was still gliding rather smoothly along the water. 

To Astrids pleasure, he wasn’t wearing a helmet, but on closer inspection, he had a winter neck covering pulled up over the bottom half of his face. He wasn’t wearing any sort of armor or leather. He was dressed in a simple black tunic, that had a loose collar, and light pants, one leg rolled up because of his missing appendage.

Astrid zeroed in on his face. His skin was tanned from the sun. Astrid wondered where they lived that gave them enough sun to tan. His hair was brown and shaggy. His eyes an emerald green, and they glinted brilliantly in the sun.

Suddenly, those eyes widened and he looked over his shoulder as the Night Fury, who was gliding happily, his tongue lolling out with glee.

“Toothless!” Astrid head the yell even from there. She pulled the spyglass away and looked at what had caused the panic. They were heading straight towards a small pillar or rock, which, in a normal year, would be hidden shallowly in the waves.

The dragon snapped to attention, its spine split into sharp spikes. He flapped quickly a few times before lunging underneath its rider. They pulled up into a huge arch in the air, the Dragon Master heald out a hand. Astrid heard a laugh, and for some reason, found herself smiling.

⥈⥈⥈

“So, what do you guys think?” Hiccup pulled his training gear over his head and clipped the buckles over his chest and shoulder pads into place. The others were doing the same, and dragons were eating up lunch. For a good tiry seconds, no one said anything. Everyone was thinking. Then Gyda broke the silence.

“I fear that if we give them dragons, they’ll betray us, and then use the knowledge we’ve given them against other dragons.”

Hiccup nodded thoughtfully and slumped down next to Toothless. “That’s fair. But we all know that dragons are good at telling who is friend and who is foe. If the Berkians try and tame the dragons into believing them, then they’ll be on edge. And Dragons, as we know, are not creatures who you have a chance against when they’re on edge.”

Gyda cackled, remembering many years ago, during the war with the Grimborns, when Dagur tried to tame the Skrill. The riders still made fun of him to the day. She blond stopped laughing suddenly and met Hiccups eyes.

“Why these dragons? Why not other dragons. What makes you think that these ones in perticular,” she threw a hand over her shoulder at the sleeping pile of dragons. “Who have been abused by the Berkians, are the right ones.”

Hiccup looked down at his hands thoughtfully. They were calloused from house and hours on end in the Sanctuary forge. There were old burd marks and scratches littering his palms and fingers. “What do we know about these species?” he said, looking up. “A Gronckle. Tough and vicious looking, but a sweetheart on this inside, and would rather not even hurt a fly. They have good memories, and are sometimes smarter than they appear. 

“A Monstrous Nightmare. They are well… a  _ nightmare.  _ They’re arrogant, selfish, aggressive, stubborn, and ferociously territorial. They demand respect, and can be incredibly angry creatures. A Hideous Zippleback is a sneaky and sky sort of dragon. Twin heads, and very  _ very  _ annoying at times. They’re witty, but their two heads often cause for conflicting opinions. 

“And finally, A Deadly Nadder. Piercing spines, loyal, powerful, intelligent, and of course, deadly. Beautiful--and they know it--but with a hot head. They’re protective, but don’t easily trust, unless its the right person.”

Hiccup leaned back and met each of the riders eyes in turn. Aasur stared right back, his face expressionless. Asvor had a small smile on her lips, her eyes knowing. Freyja was grinning, and Hiccup could practically see Gyda and Liuts gears turning.

“Who do we know with these attributes?”

Everyone spoke at once. “The Berkians.”

“Correct. From now on, you’re going to focus on training them on verbal stuff-- yes, that applies to you and Snotlout, Aasur. Get as much dragons training information into their heads as you can. They need to be informed before he give them dragons.”

⥈⥈⥈

Aasur found the next two days very boring. Each pairing sat separately in little sections of the Arena, looking at Various dragon manuels, cards, or notebooks. Hiccup had given one of his note books, and his Dragon Manuel. The Berkians had brought in their Book of Dragons, and Fishlegs had gathered up a huge amount of dragon cards.

Fishlegs and Freyja sat together, going over the cards. Freyja had a pencil in hand. She was helping correct any information. Like switching dragons to Tracker class, or getting rid of Fear class.  The twins were crouched over Hiccups Dragon Manuel. They were laughing, and every so often, Aasur heard a yelp or a screech. One of the twins, he wasn’t sure which one, would occasionally ask which of this or that dragon was more destructive, and where they could find it.

Astrid looked rather put off. She was leaned up against a wall. Asvor sat across from her, one of Hiccups note books--ones without any drawings in it--closed in her lap. The two of them seemed to be having some sort of staring contest. To Aasur, it was probably the most interesting this in the Arena at the moment.  Snotlout was babbling off about something. Aasur wasn’t really listening. He had learned how to tune out the guy really well.

Dragons weren’t really Aasurs speciality. Sure, he loved dragons. He loved everything about them. But he couldn’t name a dragon by the texture of its scale, like Hiccup could. Aasur could ride dragons really well, but he wasn’t too good at training them, like Hiccup was.

So, naturally, trying to teach the most impatient imbecile to ever walk to planet about dragons... was very,  _ very  _ difficult. He was actually surprised he hadn’t ripped off Snotlout's head… yet.

“Ok, one more time, how do you approach a dragon without any sort of weapon,” Aasur said slowly, making sure that he was really heard.

Snotlout looked down at the Book of Dragons, probably thinking that the answer would be written on the pages. It wasn’t of course. That would be in Hiccups Manuel. On every page the book said how to approach different dragons. This book only said to kill on sight, which was not helpful in the slightest.  In fact, Aasur wasn’t even sure if Snotlout knew how to read, so maybe if they did have Hiccups Manuel, he wasn’t sure it it would be very helpful to the viking.

“Um…” he looked panicked. It was a look that Aasur had come to enjoy. The pure helplessness of a man who thought he knew everything. Snotlout threw his hands up. :I don’t know, man! I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Yeah. That’s what I just said,” he slammed the book closed and leaned back. “Idiot.”

Aasur widened his eyes briefly and looked away. From the moment he had laid eyes on him, Aasur didn’t like him. And now, all Snotlout was doing wis giving him more reasons to support his original claim. No wonder Hiccup hate the guy. Though it was kind of sad.

“Do you not know,” Aasur started. He raised a finger and Snotlout went to say that yes, that is what he said. “Or do you not  _ want  _ to know?”

This made Snotlout pause. He closed his mouth and looked around at the other people in the arena. Then up at Wildae, who was asleep on top of the arena cage. There was a constant drip of saliva that landed in a growing puddle a few feet away from Aasur. Snotlout followed the drip for a heartbeat before looking back at Aasur.

“My whole life, my only purpose has been to kill dragons. To please the village and my father, and more importantly, the chief. When Useless died, I thought Id become the Heir. Thor, I’m the chiefs nephew! I should be Heir.”

Aasur stopped listening to the rest of his sentence. Right after one word, a sick feeling came into his stomach. 

“What’d you say?”

Snotlout looked up. “I should be the Heir.”

“No before that,” Aasur heald a hand out towards the viking. “You said useless- whos useless?”

“Oh, uh,” Snotlout waved a hand like it was nothing. “This stupid little runt who used to live here. Got himself killed.”

“What was his name?” Aasur asked through clenched teeth.

One of Snotlout's eyebrows went up in question. “Why does it matter?”

“ _ What  _ was his name?” His sharp tone caught the attention on Asvor, who had already been keeping an eyes out for the two of them form the corner of her eyes. She had been able to tell that there was something going on, but hadn’t been sure what. sHe heald a warning hand out to Astrid, who had moved to stand.

“Uh, Hiccup. He was just a useless run-”

In an instant, before Snotlout could even finish the word, Aasur had him around the neck. He shoved Snotlout against the wall. Surprised, the Berkians could only claw at Aasurs hand. But there was no way that he would be able to ply himself away.

Although, Asvor was there. She shoved Aasur hard to the chest. It wasn’t enough to make him budge, but it startled him, and his grip on Snotlout's throat loosened. Liut rushed over and pried Aasur’s hands off of Snotlout.

As soon as he was leg go of, Snotlout collapsed to the ground, gasping and clutching at his throat. Asvor, decidedly against her own morals, because she assumed that Aasurs actions were provoked, dropped down next to him and placed a hand on his back. Liut had wrapped his arms around Aasur from the back, and planted his feet so Aasur couldn’t move.

Snotlout convulsed and the twins helped him up and out of the Arena. The other Berkians--Astrid and Fishlegs--hesitantly followed after them. Only once they were out of sight and into the safety of the village in the cliffs above, did Luit let go. Aasur pushed him away and stumbled a bit.

Wildae crept in a nuzzled his hand. Aasur smiled and slid down the wall to the ground. He rested his arms against his knees loosely and leaned his head against the wall. He stared up at his friends. Their eyes all conveyed mixed emotions. Whileboth Freyja and Liut were frowning disapprovingly, Gyda was grinning, and Asvor didn’t really seemed to have taken a side. She just looked at Aasur with pity.

Finally, Aasur worked up the courage to speak. “Hiccup has always told us about these people. About how awful they were to him, and how he is glad he was to be rid of them. I never even imagined how horrible it actually was. And- I’m sorry. I lost my temper.”

Slowly, Asvor sat down. The other soon followed suit; they sat in a semi circle around Aasur. The dragons, who--aside from Wildae--had been hiding in the shadows around the Arena and in the cliffs, crawled in and sat with their riders.

Aasur frowned, thinking about how comical they must look.= they were very out of place among the vikings. The only similarities being that they wore armor. But even then, their armor didn’t look like viking armor, which normally consisted of thick metal shoulder pads and a metal helmet with horns. Their torsos were rarely covered in anything other than a thin wrap of leather. And apparently there were only ever four options for weaponry. And axe, a sword, a hammar, or a mace. Then, a shield.

The riders, how ever, either wore full leather armor with all sorts or straps, cuffs, and hidden compartments. And the dragons scale armor was a whole different story. They had weapons ranging from a sickle to a double headed axe and a hook sword.

Their appearances were very different. Each one of them had a sort of tattoo. And none of them had a very “viking like” body. Most male vikings had massive square bodies with huge arms that were just natural. Most of the woman were the same way. Muscles that are just there. The riders, however, had built muscles that they developed over time. And often you couldn’t even tell. Unless they had bare arms.

The others seemed to notice how strange they must look, settling down into a place where most of the people hated them. They stood out like a deer in a back of wild bears. And just like a deer, they would be eaten alive if they made one wrong move against the bears. 

Asvor leaned forward and tilted her head slightly. She met Aasurs eyes. “It’s understandable why you got mad. Hiccup is your best friend. No, more than that, he’s like a brother to you. Hiccup said he always just ignored them, and I know you don’t like it, but I think he would prefer if we just ignored them as well.”

“You’re right,” they all looked up at the voice. Hiccup, wearing full leather armor, not his using leather thing with all the straps, swung into the arena. Toothless popped his head through the cage, his tongue lolling to the side. Hiccup came to sit next to Asvor, who smiled warmly in greeting. “I ignored them for fifteen years, and found it to be the best solution. Plus, it’s just Snotface now. The twins seemed to have a little bit of remorse.”

“Ugh,” Aasur shook his head frustratingly. “Then why did  _ I  _ end up with him. Because I swear to god, Hiccup, if he says one more bad thing about you, I’m going to bash his noes so far back into his brain, he won’t even human anymore.”

Hiccup raised eye eyebrow. He had a nice amount of surprise on his face. “As  _ entertaining  _ as that would be… I have a solution.”

Aasur perked up and met Hiccups eyes. “I’m listening.” 

“You switch partners with someone.”

Aasur scoffed. “Funny, Hiccup. But who here would be able to train him without purposefully injuring him.”

Almost as soon as he said this, everyone's eyes were on Asvor. She took in all the faces staring, and her eyes widened. “Absolutely not.” 

“Asvor com on pl-” Aasur started, but she interrupted.

“Oh my thor,” she heald up a palm towards Aasur. “No.”

“Asvor, you’re possibly the only one that wouldn’t try and rip his face off. And if you do, they we’ll know we’re actually in trouble.” Aasur could see the worry in /hiccups eyes through his mask. “You’ll only have to deal with him for a day or two, and if it goes so bad, then I’ll train Snotlout personally. He never really spoke to me, so I doubt he recognise my voice.”

Asvor glowered. She hated being teamed up against. “Fine. But if he tries  _ anything,  _ then he won’t be waking up in the morning.”

Hiccups smiled. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

They all stood and Freyja leaned towards Asvor, her eyes twinkling. “You know, maybe you should ‘make sure he doesn't wake up’ anyways. Then he’d be out of our hair.”

Since Freyja hadn’t really tried to keep her voice low, they all laughed lightly and made their way to the cove, unofficially deciding that training was over for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGRYAASURANGRYAASURANGRYAASUR  
> Hello friends!  
> I have a semi embarrassing question, that I'm too stubborn to search for in google.  
> Is it "ax" or "axe"  
> Because I really don't know the different. As some might have noticed, I'm not great with spelling lol. I'm not good with homophones in general. I'm dyslexic don't judge me!  
> -Charlie

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I know that this was kinda short. I didn't really have any ideas for how he would leave Berk. But I have ideas for later on don't worry :)


End file.
